4 ms·

The web-based dashboard is for your MS account. Keep reading and you'll see what's coming to desktops.

gizmo 10y ago
Except they're still collecting everything by default and shifting the responsibility to review the privacy settings to the consumer. They conclude: > When it comes to your privacy, we strive to make choices easy to understand while also providing clear visibility and control over your data. This is entirely the wrong approach. Just don't harvest the data in the first place. Have opt-in measures if you must. That's it. That's what a serious commitment to privacy looks like. Anything else is a serious commitment to get away with harvesting as much data as possible while minimizing PR backlash.
- hendersoon 10y ago
  Honestly at this point I would be satisfied with an opt-OUT. That's right-- there is no supported way to opt-out of telemetry on Windows 10 Home or Pro SKUs. You need to use a third-party program to do it, and these settings are lost with every major upgrade, which come twice per year. https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
  - Sargos 10y ago
    So this announcement satisfies you then? Good.
    - hendersoon 10y ago
      No. This announcement does not include a way to opt-out of telemetry.
- bradford 10y ago
  (disclaimer, ms employee here and the below is just my opinion). > Just don't harvest the data in the first place. for better or worse, I just don't think this is feasible anymore. Telemetry is, by now, a fundamental part of the engineering process. Products that don't incorporate it are going to be clobbered by products that do. Microsoft didn't start this paradigm, but I think they had to incorporate it in order to stay competitive. If you can't avoid telemetry, I think the next best thing is to be transparent about it (with respect to what's being collected, how it's being used) and allow the user some control over it (by letting them 'clear' data that's been collected, and opting in/out as needed). In that respect, I don't think the steps taken today are sufficient, but they are headed in the correct direction. I also think they are being more open/transparent than many other tech companies (who do similar things without receiving nearly as much negative press as MS).
  - akjainaj 10y ago
    Telemetry is important if you've gotten rid of, you know, the QA teams MS had in the past
    - bradford 10y ago
      Can't tell if you're being tongue-in-cheek, but that was kind of the problem. The cost it took to do QA for Windows was immense, and even with an army of testers, there were still highly embarrassing (and very expensive to fix) flaws in the product all the time. Windows had to find a cheaper solution or die a slow death in the market. Earlier I said "Products that don't incorporate [telemetry] are going to be clobbered by products that do". High QA costs are the biggest part of this.
      - dingaling 10y ago
        > The cost it took to do QA for Windows was immense As it should be when you're developing an OS for 90% of the market across a huge variety of hardware. There's really no way around that, and jettisoning QA teams as a cost-saving response is incomprehensible to me. Trusting telemetry alone to ensure the robustness of your product will result in a "good enough to ship" focus on mainstream work-flows and leave corner-cases unaddressed since they're rare. And corner-cases are where the bad, system-breaking things happen. Telemetry should help QA people write mundane automated test-cases to cover the 99% and then enable them to go and spend the constructive part of their time focusing on breaking the system. But it's absolutely not a replacement for QA.
        bradford 10y ago
        I'd say that 'jettisoning QA teams' is a mischaracterization. The role is still filled, it's just evolved a lot since the windows 8.1 (and prior) era. Similarly, I'd say that 'Trusting telemetry alone' is also a mischaracterization. From where I sit, both roles are combined. The output is a far smoother engineering process and a higher quality OS. You mentioned 'corner cases [being] unaddressed' but I've witnessed the exact opposite: most of the criticism I hear about Win10 has nothing to do with quality.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  > This is entirely the wrong approach. Just don't harvest the data in the first place. Have opt-in measures if you must. That's it. That's what a serious commitment to privacy looks like. Anything else is a serious commitment to get away with harvesting as much data as possible while minimizing PR backlash. I'm sorry, but it's not economically realistic to demand that companies trying to minimize cost stop all data collection. They're not selling it: they're using it to make their developers work on real problems and improve real features. That's the same as nearly every mobile app. Watch how much your phone sings to mixpanel, kahuna, or google analytics to get a sense of what I mean. You can raise the price substantially, or you can find ways to make things cheaper. The market is really clear they want the cheaper and are fine with benign telemetry collection. But what's really absurd is that you then decide that doing what a small minority of users are asking for is a PR stunt because it doesn't go far enough in one step.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    >They're not selling it: they're using it to make their developers work on real problems and improve real features Are you aware that Windows 10 is ad supported? If the data isn't being sold today, it will as soon as quarterly profits dip low enough.
  - gizmo 10y ago
    Your appeal to economic realism is just a different way of saying that tracking is advantageous for Microsoft, which I don't think anybody disputed. Which brings me to your second point, that customers are fine with it. The underlying assumption is that consumers are Homo Economicus: rational agents making intelligent, informed decisions. This is not the case, as evidenced by the overwhelming difference between opt-in, opt-out, and must-choose behavior. Customers don't care about tracking, as you say, but not because they've thought about the issue and concluded the trade-off is in their benefit -- in reality they've never thought about the issue at all. Regular people are indifferent to iPhone privacy until they're asked if they ever have conversions or ever take photos they don't want to become public. And then it all clicks, and then they do care about their privacy. People don't care, until they do. When you call telemetry "benign" you're begging the question: the definition of benign implies you can't reasonably be opposed to it. So that's fallacious. I never said what Microsoft did was a PR stunt. My claim is that Microsoft isn't genuinely committed to the privacy of their customers, because these privacy measures are (a) insufficient (b) an afterthought (c) opt-out only. I see this as an effort to appease disgruntled customers, not as PR stunt. And as somebody else pointed out already, it still isn't possible to opt-out entirely.

gizmo 10y ago

Except they're still collecting everything by default and shifting the responsibility to review the privacy settings to the consumer. They conclude: > When it comes to your privacy, we strive to make choices easy to understand while also providing clear visibility and control over your data. This is entirely the wrong approach. Just don't harvest the data in the first place. Have opt-in measures if you must. That's it. That's what a serious commitment to privacy looks like. Anything else is a serious commitment to get away with harvesting as much data as possible while minimizing PR backlash.

hendersoon 10y ago
Honestly at this point I would be satisfied with an opt-OUT. That's right-- there is no supported way to opt-out of telemetry on Windows 10 Home or Pro SKUs. You need to use a third-party program to do it, and these settings are lost with every major upgrade, which come twice per year. https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
- Sargos 10y ago
  So this announcement satisfies you then? Good.
  - hendersoon 10y ago
    No. This announcement does not include a way to opt-out of telemetry.
bradford 10y ago
(disclaimer, ms employee here and the below is just my opinion). > Just don't harvest the data in the first place. for better or worse, I just don't think this is feasible anymore. Telemetry is, by now, a fundamental part of the engineering process. Products that don't incorporate it are going to be clobbered by products that do. Microsoft didn't start this paradigm, but I think they had to incorporate it in order to stay competitive. If you can't avoid telemetry, I think the next best thing is to be transparent about it (with respect to what's being collected, how it's being used) and allow the user some control over it (by letting them 'clear' data that's been collected, and opting in/out as needed). In that respect, I don't think the steps taken today are sufficient, but they are headed in the correct direction. I also think they are being more open/transparent than many other tech companies (who do similar things without receiving nearly as much negative press as MS).
- akjainaj 10y ago
  Telemetry is important if you've gotten rid of, you know, the QA teams MS had in the past
  - bradford 10y ago
    Can't tell if you're being tongue-in-cheek, but that was kind of the problem. The cost it took to do QA for Windows was immense, and even with an army of testers, there were still highly embarrassing (and very expensive to fix) flaws in the product all the time. Windows had to find a cheaper solution or die a slow death in the market. Earlier I said "Products that don't incorporate [telemetry] are going to be clobbered by products that do". High QA costs are the biggest part of this.
    - dingaling 10y ago
      > The cost it took to do QA for Windows was immense As it should be when you're developing an OS for 90% of the market across a huge variety of hardware. There's really no way around that, and jettisoning QA teams as a cost-saving response is incomprehensible to me. Trusting telemetry alone to ensure the robustness of your product will result in a "good enough to ship" focus on mainstream work-flows and leave corner-cases unaddressed since they're rare. And corner-cases are where the bad, system-breaking things happen. Telemetry should help QA people write mundane automated test-cases to cover the 99% and then enable them to go and spend the constructive part of their time focusing on breaking the system. But it's absolutely not a replacement for QA.
      - bradford 10y ago
        I'd say that 'jettisoning QA teams' is a mischaracterization. The role is still filled, it's just evolved a lot since the windows 8.1 (and prior) era. Similarly, I'd say that 'Trusting telemetry alone' is also a mischaracterization. From where I sit, both roles are combined. The output is a far smoother engineering process and a higher quality OS. You mentioned 'corner cases [being] unaddressed' but I've witnessed the exact opposite: most of the criticism I hear about Win10 has nothing to do with quality.
KirinDave 10y ago
> This is entirely the wrong approach. Just don't harvest the data in the first place. Have opt-in measures if you must. That's it. That's what a serious commitment to privacy looks like. Anything else is a serious commitment to get away with harvesting as much data as possible while minimizing PR backlash. I'm sorry, but it's not economically realistic to demand that companies trying to minimize cost stop all data collection. They're not selling it: they're using it to make their developers work on real problems and improve real features. That's the same as nearly every mobile app. Watch how much your phone sings to mixpanel, kahuna, or google analytics to get a sense of what I mean. You can raise the price substantially, or you can find ways to make things cheaper. The market is really clear they want the cheaper and are fine with benign telemetry collection. But what's really absurd is that you then decide that doing what a small minority of users are asking for is a PR stunt because it doesn't go far enough in one step.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  >They're not selling it: they're using it to make their developers work on real problems and improve real features Are you aware that Windows 10 is ad supported? If the data isn't being sold today, it will as soon as quarterly profits dip low enough.
- gizmo 10y ago
  Your appeal to economic realism is just a different way of saying that tracking is advantageous for Microsoft, which I don't think anybody disputed. Which brings me to your second point, that customers are fine with it. The underlying assumption is that consumers are Homo Economicus: rational agents making intelligent, informed decisions. This is not the case, as evidenced by the overwhelming difference between opt-in, opt-out, and must-choose behavior. Customers don't care about tracking, as you say, but not because they've thought about the issue and concluded the trade-off is in their benefit -- in reality they've never thought about the issue at all. Regular people are indifferent to iPhone privacy until they're asked if they ever have conversions or ever take photos they don't want to become public. And then it all clicks, and then they do care about their privacy. People don't care, until they do. When you call telemetry "benign" you're begging the question: the definition of benign implies you can't reasonably be opposed to it. So that's fallacious. I never said what Microsoft did was a PR stunt. My claim is that Microsoft isn't genuinely committed to the privacy of their customers, because these privacy measures are (a) insufficient (b) an afterthought (c) opt-out only. I see this as an effort to appease disgruntled customers, not as PR stunt. And as somebody else pointed out already, it still isn't possible to opt-out entirely.