The first and worst? From MS’s Privacy Policy Statement:
“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 […] protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services.”
This (to me) says my computer now belongs to them. Sorry, this is completely unacceptable.
The second? Cortana:
“To enable Cortana to provide personalised experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lockscreen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more.”
Cortana will also collect your speech data, to “improve” speech recognition. Shades of the Barbie Doll. So, when does your own private MS spy stop “listening”? Does it ever?
Third: Your browser (sorry – their browser): When you sign in to W10 with an MS account, the OS will automatically sync
“some of your settings and data with Microsoft servers”. This includes “web browser history, favorites, and websites you have open” in addition to “saved app, website, mobile hotspot, and Wi-Fi network names and passwords”.
This you can change…there is a way to deactivate that in your MS account settings>”Sync your settings”. That should be set to a negative as the default, not the opposite as MS has done.
Fourth: Advertisers can use your data to send you targeted ads. To me, this is Superfish all over again. You can turn this off in Settings|Privacy and flick the first switch to “off”.
“The ads we select may be based on your current location, search query, or the content you are viewing. Other ads are targeted based on your likely interests or other information that we learn about you over time using demographic data, search queries, interests and favorites, usage data, and location data.”
Lastly (and perhaps worst of all): Your encryption key is automatically sent to your OneDrive account.
So, if OneDrive is ever breached, you’re screwed. Why? Because with device encryption turned on, Windows will automatically encrypt your drive and generate a BitLocker recovery key. This key is backed up, again automatically, onto your Microsoft OneDrive account. If someone changes your data are unrecoverable creating the ransomeware situation.
Don’t you think someone should be asking your permission to do these things? Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m not the property of some corporation, and neither is my computer.
No W10 for me, thanks very much.
Source:
http://www.alphr.com/microsoft/microsoft-windows-10/1001289/the-5-windows-10-privacy-issues-you-should-be-aware-of
