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EU Privacy Watchdogs Say Windows 10 Settings Still Raise Concerns (reuters.com)
Julia Fioretti, reporting for Reuters: European Union data protection watchdogs said on Monday they were still concerned about the privacy settings of Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system despite the U.S. company announcing changes to the installation process. The watchdogs, a group made up of the EU's 28 authorities responsible for enforcing data protection law, wrote to Microsoft last year expressing concerns about the default installation settings of Windows 10 and users' apparent lack of control over the company's processing of their data. The group -- referred to as the Article 29 Working Party -- asked for more explanation of Microsoft's processing of personal data for various purposes, including advertising. "In light of the above, which are separate to the results of ongoing inquiries at a national level, even considering the proposed changes to Windows 10, the Working Party remains concerned about the level of protection of users' personal data," the group said in a statement which also acknowledged Microsoft's willingness to cooperate.
There are many tools to help with this... Spybot has a nice one (anti-beacon). There is also a plethora of information of Microsoft's telemetry targets that can be zero-routed to take care of most of it but yes it is a lot of overhead for the average person or small/medium business. Sadly it isn't just Windows 10.. its office 2016/365 as well and I'm not sure how much is scraped from Cortana and Edge.
The same can be said about any Google product from Android/ChromeOS to Search/Maps/Mail to Doubleclick/Captcha/Analytics/Tag Manager/APIs/+1/etc.
I'm not defending MS doing it so openly, but we should put things in perspective and realise how powerful Google is compared to any other company. They even have their hands dirty in the system behind tax and health in various companies and governments, not to mention corporate email systems!
Yeah, or wipe it and install 7. I'm still running XP (with PoS updates) on many computers, having no problems. I don't know why so many techies like to bash XP - "it's an antiquated unsupported OS". I guess bashing anything is the current popular trendy thing. If 7 or 10 where so radically different I would understand. Right now XP is very refined. People should want a very refined, developed OS. Obviously Linux is well refined, fully open, and I've been running mostly SlackWare for most than 20 years, but there are many great easy distros like Mint out there.
Wish i had mod points but yes. Google keeps "updating" tools that require the latest browser so "older" browsers get phased out. Then they jump in bed with the makers of the browsers to whittle away your ability to stop being tracked or defend against seeing ads.
+1 insightful for you.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
It is *my* computer, not theirs.
Not if you use Windows, Android, or IOS it's not.
BSD yes.
Linux, maybe. Mostly?
If you want it to be yours, then use software compatible with that outlook.
Or, continue to support software that transfers control of your system to somebody else, but then don't act surprised when you get what you are supporting with your purchase dollars.
Microsoft has re-purposed Windows. No longer is Windows main functionality an operating system. Windows has become the basis for egregiously extensive data collection. The sooner everyone who uses Windows realizes that, the sooner they will stop trying to keep Windows in the past when it was actually a useful operating system.
I actually do this regularly, both by clearing cookies and using private browsing modes. Videos play instantly for me, no agreements of click-through T&Cs.
The only time you need an account is to watch videos marked as "adult", although you can skip that requirement just by editing the video's URL.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC