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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the trying-to-get-the-scoop-on-what-they-scoop-up dept.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has accused Microsoft of disregarding user choice and privacy with Windows 10. InĀ a scathing editorial, EFF employee Amul Kalia calls on Microsoft to "come clean with its user community" over a growing number of Windows 10 privacy concerns. "Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft," explains Kalia, noting that enabling Cortana increases the amount of data passed to Microsoft. Privacy advocates have argued that Windows 10 sends back location, text input, voice input, touch input, websites you visit, and other telemetry data to Microsoft.

"While users can disable some of these settings, it is not a guarantee that your computer will stop talking to Microsoft's servers," says Kalia. "A significant issue is the telemetry data the company receives." Microsoft has previously insisted it anonymizes telemetry data, but the EFF is concerned the company hasn't explained exactly how it does this. "Microsoft also won't say how long this data is retained, instead providing only general timeframes."

While telemetry data is clearly a concern, the EFF focuses on Microsoft's confusing link between this data and security patches. "Microsoft has tried to explain this lack of choice by saying that Windows Update won't function properly on copies of the operating system with telemetry reporting turned to its lowest level," claims Kalia. "Microsoft is claiming that giving ordinary users more privacy by letting them turn telemetry reporting down to its lowest level would risk their security since they would no longer get security updates."

The story then proceeds to blast Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade tactics, as well.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:39PM (#392236)

    Regular Ubuntu lost me when they added Unity. I have to install Ubuntu Gnome (to avoid Unity) then add gnome-flashback to get a traditional desktop. I've looked at other flavors but always go back to gnome-flashback. Too bad there isn't an Ubuntu flavor that only has flashback and not that other crap that looks like Windows Metro. As far as Windows 10, I only have that for the Steam games that aren't ported to Linux yet. Everything else gets booted into Ubuntu.