This is how bad Winblows 10 is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kGMCfb2xw
Now let the naysayers post crap that it's no different with your phone and other excuses. I mean, would you let me put a flipping keylogger on your computer? After all, it's no different then your phone and all that, right?
Interesting that the DoD is pushing Winblows 10.
OK, it is no different than your phone, or doing searches with google/bing/whatever, or using chrome or using VPNs, or anything else, you are still tracked.
If you are asking, would it be better if all this extra stuff wasn't in win 10?
Then that depends, better for whom? Better that they don't have telemetry data to be able to fix things? Better for privacy? Again, that depends on many factors.
Should it be a user choice if they want to participate in this? Yes, they should be able to opt completely out.
Is most of this stuff also in win 7 & 8? Yes.
Don't believe me? Fire up wireshark, and look what is going across the network.
OS X? Yeah, they track you as well.
Linux? They have parts of what the others do, but, it is much easier to get what you want with a flavor of linux.
Is this stuff needed to make the product better? Yes, it goes with usage patterns, and if they can optimize what most people are doing to make it faster, or fix things faster, then people would like that.
There hasn't been one post or video that can say, without a doubt that they are keeping an eye on you specifically.
It is one huge pool of data with identification data stripped.
This has been going on every time people send crash data in order to fix things... but, I don't see people yelling about that, which can contain lots of personal info before they strip the data from those.
Have you talked to some of the engineers that work (or have worked) at MS about this?
They all tell you the same thing about what they are doing with the data.
MS is one huge company, you think they could keep a lid on what is going on with the data if the identification marks weren't strip out ?
They aren't stupid, they wouldn't sacrifice their business just so they could capture an individual's data stream without a court order.
So, yeah, this is FUD.
Some of the examples are, searching using Cortana.. yes, it *gasps* sends data to the cloud, and tries to get back what you are searching for.
It is no different than entering a search term in google/bing/whatever, it does the exact same thing.
It doesn't send all your files to the cloud either, unless you have onedrive, then, it only sends the files that you specify.
Hosts files have been manipulated in the past to point to shady sites, so, there is a way to double check what the DNS should be, compared to what is listed in the hosts file.
The other examples given are also full of holes.
These people do it for the hits and the ad revenue this brings in, nothing more.