1) Bugs and mistakes happen. Microsoft thought (in some HN thread a while back) the Terminal data collection was perfectly safe because it was only stored loca

1) Bugs and mistakes happen. Microsoft thought (in some HN thread a while back) the Terminal data collection was perfectly safe because it was only stored locally, but it turned out they were accidentally sending it to their servers. Lots of companies have created bugs that accidentally erased the wrong files (e.g. Apple erasing the whole disk when it had a space in its name) so it's plausible that they could accidentally upload the wrong files. If collecting user data is prioritized above protecting user privacy, it's more likely that this kind of mistake will occur. 2) Anonymizing data is tricky. It often turns out not to be as anonymous as was claimed or assumed. If this is not considered a particulary important issue, mistakes are virtually guaranteed to happen. 3) As you said, there is no benefit for the user, so they gain nothing in return for the unnecessary risks introduced by this anti-feature.