NVIDIA Adds Telemetry to Latest Drivers

[96Firebird]

Wrong license agreement, that's just the website.

Same type of privacy policy that is linked in the OP, that was quoted and bolded.

 

[provost]

I am pretty certain telemetry has been embedded in Nvidia drivers for sometime, particularly with GFE. I typically uninstall anything to do with NV backend user experience. One of the reasons why I am very reluctant to buy another Nvidia gpu. Keep waiting for AMD to release something worthwhile since Fury/Furyx, still waiting... at this point PS4 pro with PSVR is looking like my next "gaming entertainment" purchase...

 

[Piroko]

Like I said before, telemetry isn't inherently bad in and of itself. It can be used for good purposes as well..

Absolutely agree, but there is zero reason for there to be personal identification in that telemetry data from the eyes of a consumer.

Same type of privacy policy that is linked in the OP, that was quoted and bolded.

False equivalence. What you can find out about a user within the confines of a modern browser is very limited in comparison to what you can find out when you basically have full access to his hard drives. Also, that service is completely optional (and probably not even used by anyone in this forum).

 

[Carfax83]

They rather specifically define personal data as name/address--actual identifiers--that they will then sell away (either nVidia just isn't comfortable enough with their glorious 60% margins, or they really are what most people say they are, while some simply don't care ). --this stands in contrast to the information also posted in this thread, regarding how AMD defines "personal information" as non-identifying

I agree that it's wrong for NVidia to transmit personal data to other agencies, and if that's what they are doing, then it's definitely very wrong and it needs to stop..

What I don't agree with, is using the privacy policy and using it as a means to explain what is occurring with the drivers, or GFE. For example, did you know that NVidia has their own online store which they sell their own hardware and products on? This necessitates the collection of personal data in the form of names, email addresses, phone numbers etcetera, much like any other retailer, online or otherwise.

All the stuff about personal information is likely pertaining to using NVidia's online services like their store, or their forums, which are definitely optional.

And while AMD by comparison does possess a store, they only act as a go between. They don't sell their hardware directly unlike NVidia to my knowledge.

 

[Carfax83]

Absolutely agree, but there is zero reason for there to be personal identification in that telemetry data from the eyes of a consumer.

We don't know this to be the case until NVidia provides additional specifics. Like I pointed out earlier, NVidia has their own online store where consumers can purchase products directly from them. So the stuff in their privacy policy about personal data collection is likely pertaining to this online store, and their forum perhaps.

I seriously doubt their drivers and software are collecting the personal data... The telemetry in the drivers is probably for stuff like crashes and errors, plus driver profiles, and I can see why they would want to know this data..

 

[SlickR12345]

My biggest worry is that they are going to go through my personal documents, bank accounts, credit card numbers, full name, social security number, etc... These things can easily be abused and stolen and whatnot. I certainly wouldn't trust a terrible and fraudulent anti consumer company like Nvidia with any of my information.

The big reason I hate windows 10 is because of its telemetry and basically acting like a trojan horse spyware. As soon as Vulkan gets more popular I'm switching to a Linux operating system. They still need to work on the various OS's, but I expect within a year Linux to start slowly, but surely taking over.

We don't know this to be the case until NVidia provides additional specifics. Like I pointed out earlier, NVidia has their own online store where consumers can purchase products directly from them. So the stuff in their privacy policy about personal data collection is likely pertaining to this online store, and their forum perhaps.

I seriously doubt their drivers and software are collecting the personal data... The telemetry in the drivers is probably for stuff like crashes and errors, plus driver profiles, and I can see why they would want to know this data..

Can you read? If no, you can go back to elementary school. Their EULA is about their drivers, NOT their website or their their online forums or any other crap like that! They have several services running that literally monitor your computer all the time when its running and in their EULA they state they are collecting your personal information like name, address of living, etc... basically everything about you.




Personal attacks are not allowed here.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[superstition]

Expect this trend of stealing and spying to only increase.

 

[Pariah]

All the stuff about personal information is likely pertaining to using NVidia's online services like their store, or their forums, which are definitely optional.

We don't have to speculate here. The EULA actually states that explicitly:

"We may collect personal information that you or other users give us (e.g. your contact details or your comments or opinions), allow us to receive either through your preferences in your devices (e.g. location data) or browser or from third parties such as social networks (e.g. your public profile information) or through use of our Services (e.g. the pages you visit)."

They go on to further explain that for those that didn't get it the first time:

Most of the Personal Information we receive comes to us voluntarily from our users in the course of using our Services. For example, Personal Information may be collected when you:

• Register or log in to our Services;
• Participate in activities available through our Services such as a sweepstakes, contests, games and promotional offers;
• Sign up for a newsletter;
• Provide information to our customer service representatives or contact us through our Services;
• Use our message boards and other public forums available through our Services;
• Use any social networking features available through our Services and create a profile or share information about yourself;
• Apply for employment or a position online.

In other words, you can put your tin foil hat down, anything that personally identifies you is information you voluntarily gave to them. They are not scouring your HD through a backdoor in their drivers to pull your name, phone number and banking information. They can pull additional information electronically and that data again, is specifically listed and is basically a list of things practically every company you come in contact with online pulls.

 

[superstition]

In other words, you can put your tin foil hat down, anything that personally identifies you is information you voluntarily gave to them. They are not scouring your HD through a backdoor in their drivers to pull your name, phone number and banking information. They can pull additional information electronically and that data again, is specifically listed and is basically a list of things practically every company you come in contact with online pulls.

And Yahoo was fighting the good fight against spying on people by opposing the rubber stamp court system and such as much as it could (according to earlier articles which have been completely contradicted by the latest revelations that Yahoo did everything possible get all of the data to the spies).

This foil hat metaphor should have died with Snowden, Assange, and Manning. It's about as fresh as the Cold War.

The bottom line here is that there needs to be a Telemetry control panel in Windows and all telemetry needs to be clearly exposed and controllable in it. (User choices should also be permanent, not rubber that bounces back whenever the spies and their retainers decide to delete those choices.)

 

[Pariah]

They rather specifically define personal data as name/address--actual identifiers--that they will then sell away (either nVidia just isn't comfortable enough with their glorious 60% margins, or they really are what most people say they are, while some simply don't care ). --this stands in contrast to the information also posted in this thread, regarding how AMD defines "personal information" as non-identifying.

I would have reported this post for trolling if not for the oddly selective quoting of the EULA by the OP.

From the EULA:

"We do not sell Personal Information about our customers or users to any third parties. We may from time to time share your Personal Information with our business partners, resellers, affiliates, service providers, consulting partners and others in order to provide our Services to you."

You will notice that the second part of this was quoted by the OP, but for some "unknown" reason, the first part got left out...

 

[superstition]

"We do not sell Personal Information about our customers or users to any third parties. We may from time to time share your Personal Information with our business partners, resellers, affiliates, service providers, consulting partners and others in order to provide our Services to you."

That's a big umbrella. Basically, it makes "third parties" entities that aren't "others", whatever that might mean.

 

[Pariah]

The bottom line here is that there needs to be a Telemetry control panel in Windows and all telemetry needs to be clearly exposed and controllable in it. (User choices should also be permanent, not rubber that bounces back whenever the spies and their retainers decide to delete those choices.)

I am aware of the policy of calling out reading comprehension on this forum, but I believe it is a valid point to bring up that it appears many of the posters in this thread did not bother to read through the whole EULA that was linked earlier in this thread, instead relying only on the selective quoting done in the original post, as many of the points that are being brought up are specifically addressed in the complete EULA including the one I quoted here.

 

[superstition]

I am aware of the policy of calling out reading comprehension on this forum, but I believe it is a valid point to bring up that it appears many of the posters in this thread did not bother to read through the whole EULA that was linked earlier in this thread, instead relying only on the selective quoting done in the original post, as many of the points that are being brought up are specifically addressed in the complete EULA including the one I quoted here.

Regular people do not have time to spelunk through legalese nor should they have to rely on the honesty of corporations to uphold those nebulous EULAs. All Telemetry needs to be controllable via a single dedicated Telemetry control panel. It needs to be made as concise, accurate, and as easily managed as possible for the end user. All attempts to gather personal data should be funneled through that control panel so people can turn all of it off if they wish to. And, it should not cause services to be broken as a method of force-feeding it.

 

[Pariah]

That's a big umbrella. Basically, it makes "third parties" entities that aren't "others", whatever that might mean.

Missing the point. They aren't selling the information to anyone as the poster I was responding to claimed.

 

[superstition]

Missing the point. They aren't selling the information to anyone as the poster I was responding to claimed.

That's a red herring with regard to mine.

 

[Pariah]

Regular people do not have time to spelunk through legalese nor should they have to rely on the honesty of corporations to uphold those nebulous EULAs. All Telemetry needs to be controllable via a single dedicated Telemetry control panel. It needs to be made as concise, accurate, and as easily managed as possible for the end user. All attempts to gather personal data should be funneled through that control panel so people can turn all of it off if they wish to. And, it should not cause services to be broken as a method of force-feeding it.

In the time it took you to type this response up, you could have read the whole EULA. It is literally shorter than the average post length of some well known posters on here. If you are so concerned about your privacy, you are not in a position to claim you don't have less than 2 minutes to read the whole thing and educate yourself on what they are doing.

 

[superstition]

Opinion noted and rejected. Good day to you.

 

[LTC8K6]

I could not possibly care less if NV or any other hardware mfg collects and shares info about me.

Heck, my cellphone has been spying on me for a decade at least. It's absolutely the most intrusive device any of us owns.
Few seem to care about their phone or tablet, though.

For some reason, if certain companies do it, it sets people off.
Other times, people don't bat an eyelash about it...

 

[Carfax83]

We don't have to speculate here. The EULA actually states that explicitly

I think you need to read the entire policy:

NVIDIA is committed to respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy applies to our world-wide family of NVIDIA-operated websites (including www.nvidia.com, www.slizone.com, 3DVision Live, GeForce.com, GTC, TegraZone.com, and shield.nvidia.com) and mobile apps and hardware and software products including any internet-connected devices (our "Services").

Yes, it includes hardware and software products as well, but this is most likely Shield, their gaming service which is connected to the internet. I doubt very much that DRIVERS are collecting telemetry for NVidia that includes personal information such as name, address, phone number etcetera. The drivers do have telemetry, but only for crashes, errors and driver profiles..

 

[Pariah]

I think you need to read the entire policy:



Yes, it includes hardware and software products as well, but this is most likely Shield, their gaming service which is connected to the internet. I doubt very much that DRIVERS are collecting telemetry for NVidia that includes personal information such as name, address, phone number etcetera. The drivers do have telemetry, but only for crashes, errors and driver profiles..

I was agreeing with you. My posts should have made it clear that I did read the entire EULA.

 

[Borealis7]

seems like it is on by default with new drivers, even if you don't install GFE.
here's how to disable it:
https://www.techpowerup.com/227598/nvidia-telemetry-spooks-privacy-sensitive-users-how-to-disable-it

 

[Piroko]

We don't know this to be the case until NVidia provides additional specifics. Like I pointed out earlier, NVidia has their own online store where consumers can purchase products directly from them.

Actually, that's a third party called Digital River, Inc. handling the store (not that this is a problem).

We don't have to speculate here. The EULA actually states that explicitly:

"We may collect personal information that you or other users give us (e.g. your contact details or your comments or opinions), allow us to receive either through your preferences in your devices (e.g. location data) or browser or from third parties such as social networks (e.g. your public profile information) or through use of our Services (e.g. the pages you visit)."

You know, you could have gone the extra mile and actually linked the EULA. Would have spared me the need to navigate through Nvidias driver download site. Anyways, this is the actual, most current EULA for the driver:
http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licence.php?lang=us

Customer hereby agrees and acknowledges that the SOFTWARE may access, collect non-personally identifiable information about, update, and configure Customer's system in order to properly optimize such system for use with the SOFTWARE.

Not an issue.

The part about "Registration and Customer Information" is a little bit more stupid imho, because it links to an extended policy outside of the EULA:

Customer also acknowledges that from time to time, NVIDIA may collect, use, and disclose such information about Customer and/or Customer's system in connection with the SOFTWARE in accordance with NVIDIA's privacy policy, available at URL http://www.nvidia.com/object/privacy_policy.html

Note: Still talking about non-personally identifiable information here. But then you click on the link and land on what was discussed in the first page, another EULA that leaves room for interpretation as to which EULA applies to which software:

This Privacy Policy applies to our world-wide family of NVIDIA-operated websites (including www.nvidia.com, www.slizone.com, 3DVision Live, GeForce.com, GTC, TegraZone.com, and shield.nvidia.com) and mobile apps and hardware and software products including any internet-connected devices (our "Services").

Read through it, it's mostly par for the course. I do have a nitpick:

NVIDIA may "de-personalize" Personal Information by removing personally identifiable characteristics, such as name and email address, and aggregate data for use in surveys or other business purposes.

No, you should de-personalize it for "other business purposes", that's a vague loophole you've put in there.

In other words, you can put your tin foil hat down, anything that personally identifies you is information you voluntarily gave to them. They are not scouring your HD through a backdoor in their drivers to pull your name, phone number and banking information. They can pull additional information electronically and that data again, is specifically listed and is basically a list of things practically every company you come in contact with online pulls.

I stand corrected. I will note though that the red team EULA is less ambiguous because includes their bundled CCC and Crimson control panels in the "non-personal information" part.

 

[BSim500]

Apparently it only affects Windows 10. Over on TechPowerUp, one W7 poster verified there's no telemetry on the Windows 7 installer version (and another poster confirmed it 9 posts down). I can also confirm this myself. Just installed 375.70 WITHOUT GFE or 3D/VR stuff (just the GFX driver, HD audio driver & PhysX). The only thing listed in autoruns is NVDisplay.ContainerLocalSystem (core driver) and NvCplDesktopContent (Menu Handler that adds NVidia Control Panel to desktop right-click menu). Zero telemetry, no Network Service in autoruns at all, nothing in Task Scheduler, no additional Services, nothing extra running in Process Explorer, no additional Network Activity in Resource Monitor, etc.

Us backwards Windows 7 luddites, eh?

 

[zinfamous]

I would have reported this post for trolling if not for the oddly selective quoting of the EULA by the OP.

From the EULA:

"We do not sell Personal Information about our customers or users to any third parties. We may from time to time share your Personal Information with our business partners, resellers, affiliates, service providers, consulting partners and others in order to provide our Services to you."

You will notice that the second part of this was quoted by the OP, but for some "unknown" reason, the first part got left out...

so they don't sell it, fair enough. I'd still rather the normal, distasteful groan of encountering an ad for some garbage Monster energy drink while docking my cruiser in space dock outside of Centauri V, over the ad that sells the product directly to me, with a buy button on those assets that links directly to my Amazon account.

 

[Tweak155]

They don't sell it, but do the partners that they share it with? I don't see why it matters if they get paid or not, they give out the info.

I'm generally not a nutter about these things, and my gut told me not to sign up for the new GFE when it required login, but I did it anyway. Not happy, but I'm sure I have info out there all over the place already anyway. This makes me even more determined to get AMD next go around though... I'm usually a best bang-for-buck type guy, but this may be a turning point.