I think this is one of the points that the spirit of GDPR and similar legal frameworks gets right: users have the right to opt-in, without service being degrade

I think this is one of the points that the spirit of GDPR and similar legal frameworks gets right: users have the right to opt-in, without service being degraded if they don't, to data sharing unless that data sharing is "necessary" to fulfill the transaction (I believe this is the basis for "legitimate interest"). If I'm buying a SaaS or DBaaS from a vendor over a marketplace, or launching a metrics collector where phoning those metrics home is a core value prop, I'd be fine to be told that sharing information with the end operator, not just the marketplace, is necessary to fulfill the transaction. And there should be contracts in place to ensure my data's not used for unrelated purposes. If the operator breaches those contracts, the operator is liable. But in what possible way is "using a pre-packaged Linux distribution" a transaction where sharing information with the packager is "necessary?" I have no doubt that Microsoft's lawyers have covered their posteriors here. But the spirit of these regulations would be that users don't have the expectation that they're opting into Canonical getting their info just because they use a bog-standard Ubuntu distro. Users didn't knowingly consent to this. (EDIT: not a lawyer, not legal advice)