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Windows 10 Privacy Changes Appease Watchdogs, But Still No Data 'Off-Switch' (zdnet.com)
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced several privacy changes in Windows 10, but it didn't give users an option to completely opt-out of data-collection feature. The announcement came at a time to coincide with a statement by the Swiss data protection and privacy regulator, the FDPIC, which last week said it would drop its threats of a lawsuit after the company "agreed to implement" a string of recommendations it made last year. The news closed the books on an investigation that began in 2015, shortly after Windows 10 was released. Though the Swiss appear satisfied, other critics are waiting for more. The French data protection watchdog, the CNIL, was equally unimpressed by Microsoft's actions, and it served the company with a notice in July to demand that it clean up its privacy settings. In an email, the CNIL said that the changes "seem to comply" with its complaint, but it's "now analyzing more in [sic] details Microsoft answers in order to know whether all the failures underlined in the formal notice do now comply with the law." ZDNet adds: Microsoft still hasn't said exactly what gets collected as part of the basic level of collection, except that the data is used to improve its software and services down the line; a reasonable ask -- but one that nonetheless lacks specifics. Microsoft said it wants users to "trust" it. And while the likelihood that the company is doing anything nefarious with users' information is frankly unlikely, the running risk is that the data could somehow be turned over to a government agency or even stolen by hackers is inescapable. That risk alone is enough for many to want to keep what's on their computer in their homes. While changing the privacy controls is a move in the right direction, it's still short of what many have called for. By ignoring the biggest privacy complaint from its consumer users -- the ability to switch off data collection altogether -- Microsoft has favored the "just enough" approach to appease the regulators. Without a way to truly opt-out, Microsoft's repeated pledge (eight times in the blog post, no less) to give its users "control" of their data comes off as a hollow soundbite.
what ever the NSA or their EU equivalent asks for and more just in case they need to ask for more in the future.
stop using windows if you want any semblance of privacy.
Apparently Microsoft uses the word "Trust" in the same way Apple uses the word "Courage". I still haven't figured out what either one means... only that neither correspond to what's in the dictionary.
ZDNet adds: ... And while the likelihood that the company is doing anything nefarious with users' information is frankly unlikely ...
This quote is a case of somebody writing something to just fit a grammatical template, rather than thinking about what they're writing. Substantiate that wild speculation, ZDNet, or turn in your beard-stroking license asap.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Does the pro / enterprise edition even do automatic updates or uninstalls? At least those versions allow you to disable it through a Group Policy. Or does your "business class" environment run on a bunch of Windows 10 Home machines?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Is that too much to ask? I'd like to pay some money in exchange for software to abstract my hardware into a platform and allow application to run. That is of course the kernel and drivers as well as the libraries and services necessary for applications.
I don't want advertisements, data mining, or even a bundled web browser. I do want security updates and timezone updates, please don't stop updating timezones with the excuse that an older operating system version is "unsupported".
If this were a free market, we could pay money in exchange for the goods and services we want. Assuming we can agree on a price, but I doubt even a million dollars would could get Microsoft's attention.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
> "But that tracking can be easily disabled!" or "But that tracking is off by default!"
These are perfectly reasonable mitigations.
Also, it is not reasonable to pretend that a thing that Ubuntu did is somehow "Linux", even if they were still doing it. You know what spies on you? Red Star Linux. But that's not a very reasonable thing. If you don't like the Ubuntu/Amazon thing, then leave it off or turn it off, or just simply don't use Ubuntu. Arch doesn't have that problem. Or Fedora, or Debian, or or or or or or
The parent actually makes a good point, and I don't doubt your rebuttal. However!
Microsoft promised that there would not only be "one" Windows and that everyone would receive forced updates.
But that's not actually the case. What they are doing is rolling out updates across different users at different rates. So actually, the parent poster could be 100% correct, and so can you, and it's all down to Microsoft using everyone who isn't an "Enterprise" customer as their QA department.
They're being complete fucks. They know they're being complete fucks. What they're going to do now is a classic "shift to the middle move" where they relax the bullshit and everyone accepts the compromise position as being better than the bullshit today, but still 10 times worse than what it was 5 years ago.