Despite being one of the biggest supporters for privacy and net neutrality you'll find, I cannot believe so many people here are not upgrading because they think Windows 10 is breaking their privacy. Sure, if you don't want to upgrade for whatever other reason, fine, but it's just senseless to pretend you'll be "less safe" in Windows 10 than in 7, 8 or any other system. Part of it is understandable due to this strange statement in Microsoft's Privacy Statement:
Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to:
1.comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;
... etc
Which really bugs me because people are fixating on the "files in private folders" bit and making the implication that they're snooping through the files on your hard disk. Which leads to the very stupid behavior of "Oh, Skynet!" or "Oh, intrusive corporations!" when in reality, it only applies to content which Microsoft actually collects, which is:
We collect content of your files and communications when necessary to provide you with the services you use. This includes: the content of your documents, photos, music or video you upload to a Microsoft service such as OneDrive. It also includes the content of your communications sent or received using Microsoft services.
In other words. They have access to it because it's on their servers. They don't look at it but they can if they want just because it's going through their stuff. Surprise, surprise, the exact same thing applies to Apple, Google, other operating systems, and literally any company who hosts your stuff. It's just sad how there are people here literally saying you're giving away your rights and making them free to spy on you. For real, Windows 10 is the best version of Windows so far and it's not even close, for a multitude of reasons. If people don't want to upgrade because they don't like it or because they can't be bothered with it, that's not an issue. But to see people pulling stuff out of their ass just to talk about how they're against corporate espionage or whatever the hell you want to call the things you're inventing, when such things have absolutely no difference from the services you've been using your entire life, that's just being delusional.
There are ACTUAL privacy problems in the world, elsewhere. How about being more informed about the subject and actually moving against those issues instead of pretending there's an issue here just because you buy into conspiracy bullshit?
Now, this is a actually pretty serious subject, so let's talk about it more in depth. There needs to be a big effort toward educating people about what data collection actually means. Nobody is directly snooping through your files and chortling at your porn stash. Nobody gives a shit if you occasionally torrent a movie or a game. There's simply too much data to sift through for those individual bits of info to matter. It's entirely managed by computers, and the data is only relevant on a massive, millions-of-users scale. Advertising data is gathered from search habits, wishlists, interests, etc. on sites like Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook. Unless you're completely disconnected from the services of the modern world, you cannot avoid that. Computer usage data is gathered by an algorithm looking at what you use your computer to do on a day-to-day basis, like how you access what types of files, what programs you run most, or how fast the system responds to certain actions. All of this is attached to a unique identifier - such as your device's IP address - which can be directly linked to other identifiers where you have set up an account with X, Y, or Z service.
None of this data is directly observed by a person. That would be absurd. It's compiled alongside millions of other profiles like yours and distilled down to generic trend info. Marketers like this because it allows them to tailor advertisements that they can flag as being for a specific demographic, which a computer will then (on its own) send to your IP address. Software developers like this because it allows them to get a feel for how people in different demographics use their machines, what seems to be intuitive and what doesn't, what features they should put in, and so on. It helps developers make a better product.
I understand why people are kind of unnerved by this, but in the end, it's nothing new (at all - it's been happening since the days of AOL) and it can actually be beneficial. Microsoft, Google, Apple and all others don't sell away your secrets. Again, that's just buying into the conspiracy crap. They sell advertising data (which is just big, vague lists), and keep usage info for internal purposes. They raised a big stink after the NSA stuff came out because they were being forced to hand over user data, which is something people have conveniently forgotten. And THAT is an actual issue people need to worry about, not the things people are just making up here. Seeing people saying "I will stay using Windows 7/8 because of this" or "I'll switch to Mac/Linux specifically because of this" is painful when those same people will continue to use cloud hosting services, search engines, mobile phones and all the things which have always been using their data in harmless ways, and will continue to do the exact same thing.
All you have to do is calm down, analyze the situation, and learn what you need to learn about the subject you're talking about.
