These are two different things that only on surface seems to be similar. The censuses performed by governments happen every few years (should be 10 years for ma

These are two different things that only on surface seems to be similar. The censuses performed by governments happen every few years (should be 10 years for majority of countries, if I'm not mistaken), while telemetry gathered by software happens almost on daily basis if not all the time. Then, depending on place, census may include every adult citizen or just representative part of the population and at the same it might be compulsory for those who were selected or who are required to participate. Telemetry involves everyone by default and it's hardly optional unless you decide to actively fight it - speaking about Microsoft Windows here. The choices offered by Microsoft doesn't offer users true control over data they gather and process; hell, that actually applies to other big companies as well - you have just the illusion you are in control of what they managed to collect about you and the vague assurances, promises that they aren't up to no good with that stuff. Government will most likely benefit from planning its politics having the data gathered from census while Microsoft might or might not use the telemetry data and honestly, seeing what they did with Windows 10 over course of all its releases, it doesn't appear they do actually use that telemetry data for anything. They don't even bother with users, power users opinions regarding the features that are causing issues in Windows.