Do you mind if I paraphrase your comment and add it to the article? Thanks for checking the privacy guide, it establishes what Microsoft officially has to say about their data collection methods. And, I should have checked it before writing the article.
I am cynical of any company that is trying to impede user's ability to turn privacy related settings off. They go out of their way to make it difficult. There are no more than 2 dozen privacy related switches in Control Panel. Everything is checked on by default. This whole thing reeks of insiduous tracking, spying and surveillance, despite of what the privacy guide says. I am very, very cynical.
Also, there is no assurance that government agencies have access to a wealth of information that's collected as part of "user experience improvement". Furthermore, all this data collection, even if it is not used for advertisement currently has potential to be used in the future for ad tracking. Microsoft has full control over changing their privacy policy next day. I lost the count of emails that I get every other day that eBay, or YouTube or Twitter has changed their privacy policy.
Assuming benevolent actions from the company collecting data, whether it is for "telemetry" purposes or for ad tracking, has the risk of being hacked. I presume Microsoft has taken enough steps to anonymize personally identifiable information or as they call it PII in the circles.
The plug needs to be pulled from the point of origin of the data, if it is not collected, it is not going to be misused.
Questions that I would like to ask Microsoft:
- Why make it difficult for user to opt-out of privacy related settings?
- Why employ dark patterns to trick users into submitting their data?
- Why push Cortana across the board from "Home" to "Enterprise" editions, where no one has asked for it, no one uses it and it is impossible to get rid of?
- Why not make it an opt-in process as opposed to opting out?