5 ms·
> > "the number of crashes or hangs, and application state change details, such as how much processor time and memory were used, and the total uptime for an app
by Flammy 10y ago
> > "the number of crashes or hangs, and application state change details, such as how much processor time and memory were used, and the total uptime for an app."
> To e.g. determine when you used the TOR browser, since the difference in uptime between two time points is how much it was up during that interval.
Having personally talked with Microsoft engineers who handle what this data is used for, I can tell you they take PII very seriously and per user details aren't being shared with 3rd parties (at present). Could they be misusing this? Or start selling it? Yes, but it would be an incredibly dumb idea from a brand value perspective, and I trust them to at least protect that. (I do honestly think that like most people, Microsoft employees are well-meaning individuals with good intentions)
What is this data used for? The most common use is to tell a large software developer "you have a memory leak in version 3.1.x when running on 4th gen intel CPUs with driver version 11.3" or similar. So companies with wide install bases (Oracle, IBM, other Microsoft divisions, etc) can fix issues which impact literally millions of users.
If anyone reading this has ever received this sort of Microsoft communication about your software, could you share your experiences?
- Veratyr 10y ago> Having personally talked with Microsoft engineers who handle what this data is used for, I can tell you they take PII very seriously and per user details aren't being shared with 3rd parties (at present). Could they be misusing this? Or start selling it? Yes, but it would be an incredibly dumb idea from a brand value perspective, and I trust them to at least protect that. (I do honestly think that like most people, Microsoft employees are well-meaning individuals with good intentions) Being an American company, you also have to worry about Microsoft being compelled to disclose per-user details with law enforcement or the intelligence community. They have no choice when it comes to this, so allowing them to have this data at all is dangerous.
- dTal 10y ago>it would be an incredibly dumb idea from a brand value perspective Imagine how damaging it would be to their brand value if they put ads in the main OS interface.
- jmnicolas 10y ago> Microsoft employees are well-meaning individuals with good intentions Then let me disable this telemetry completely, I'm fed-up with people that know better than me what's good for me.
- ryacko 10y agoah, don't worry, if Google can't protect their intellectual property, I'm sure Microsoft can protect your PII!
- icc97 10y agoIt's typically systems and corporate structures that are the problem not individuals.
- youdontknowtho 10y agothanks for your input in this conversation. thats really informative.
- youdontknowtho 10y agoi was being serious, i thought that was really helpful input.
- Flammy 10y agoThanks dude. While (like many here) I'm very privacy oriented, this is a situation where Occam's Razor applies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
- ionised 10y ago> I can tell you they take PII very seriously I'm sure they do, but that still doesn't make me trust them or feel any better about this.