5 ms·
To be honest, publishing most of what they are collecting makes me trust them less, not more. Why not publish all, what are they hiding?
by calcifer 10y ago
To be honest, publishing most of what they are collecting makes me trust them less, not more. Why not publish all, what are they hiding?
- chrisper 10y agoBecause then people would stop using their OS. They would also lose their free beta testers.
- Arcsech 10y agoThe first sentence of the article is "Microsoft has published the full range of data that Windows 10 version 1703, the Creators Update, will collect in its default "basic" telemetry setting." They provided all the info they collect in the default mode, the title only says "most" because they didn't give a complete list for what they collect in the opt-in "Full" telemetry mode.
- jasonkostempski 10y agoThey could tell us they're telling us everything and just be lying. Why does it have to be hidden at all? And why not let people turn it all off? Then everyone would stop talking about it.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoThis is what I don't get. For as many reasons as they have to justify telemetry, it can't be worth the damage to their image of refusing to allow a disable setting. Especially since the vast majority of users will not disable it anyways.
- tunap 10y agoOh, I don't really know, but I gather they are gambling that the data & ad sales will eclipse any potential losses in marketshare. Their hubris, and duopoly position, leads me to presume they are going to profit in the short-term, at least. Hell, everybody's getting rich doing it! http://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/24-billion-data-business-telcos-discuss/301058/ http://adage.com/article/datadriven-marketing/24-billion-dat...
- pdkl95 10y agoI doubt they care about their image. Microsoft has traditionally acted in a very monopolistic - sometimes almost solipsistic - manner. In recent years they've broadened their approach a bit, but NIH syndrome is going to be a key part of their culture for a long time. They may not have even considered that "telemetry" might hurt their image (or profits). Even on HN we regularly see people complaining that they cannot switch to a different OS. Technical solutions sometimes help but MS probably assumes that most people will submit to the lockin. Image doesn't matter when most people are tied to the platform. When games are enough to tie people to Windows, MS can do whatever they want.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoI disagree. I don't think you need to like Microsoft to notice they are investing heavily in initiatives designed to repair their historical reputation.
- pseudalopex 10y agoThey've done a lot recently to improve their reputation with developers. They don't seem too concerned about losing desktop users.
- jasonkostempski 10y agoI'm a perfect example of this being the case. I'm a .NET developer by trade and I have very few complaints about it, but I only run Windows as a VM at home because I don't want it anywhere near my personal life.
- tartuffe78 10y agoPerhaps a secret court order forbids them from doing that.
- saiya-jin 10y agoplus it took them almost 2 years after release to reach even this pathetic state. M$ lost any trust it ever had (not that much) long time ago
- warp 10y agoIf I understand the article correctly, they are publishing all they are collecting by default. They are not publishing exactly what they are collecting for the "Full" telemetry setting, which is opt-in. I'm guessing they don't want to commit to that because they want to be free to add and remove metrics they're interested in.
- hounsell 10y agoThe default telemetry level is "Enhanced" though, so it's not what they're collecting by default. It's just evasive on Microsoft's part.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y agoEnhanced is being removed. Only full and basic will exist. This is in the linked article.
- hounsell 10y agoYeh, I'm sorry, I missed that. My point is perhaps only even stronger though, considering the new default is "Full". To their minimal credit, I suppose, you can no longer avoid the toggle when installing or upgrading to the Creators Update, which you could do in previous Windows with telemetry. I doubt that many will still bother even reading the labels of the toggles though, let alone consider whether they'd be better served with an option other than the default.
- hedora 10y agoNote the Orwellian use of the word "telemetry." They are using it to mean "data collected by the telemetry team" at Microsoft. This is not a list of "telemetry data collected by Windows 10". I am beginning to suspect that they do not have adequate internal safeguards to control the collection of personally identifiable information across the entire company (including office, bing, skype, linkedin, etc, etc). That would mean they are actually incapable of enumerating all the information a clean Windows 10 install and office 365 will phone home. It would also explain discrepancies between todays's list and third party audits of Windows 10.
- sdenton4 10y agoThat reaction is exactly why many companies don't disclose this kind of thing at all. It's better to remain opaque than walk into a bad pr cycle for performing a basically good deed (increasing transparency). This whole thread is somewhat disheartening, actually. Devs - especially ones developing against a broad hardware ecosystem - need feedback from the field to surface problems. That need must be balanced against privacy. A golden hope would be an open standard for collection and anonymized storage of telemetry data. It's likely difficult to say exactly what is needed from one os to the next though, once you get into the technical details of what needs to be monitored for useful debugging of major subsystems... So seems far fetched.