Does The World realize that Windows 10 is no longer an operating system
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Ancient Zygote wrote:
I don't think many informed consumers do
Oh, very good. Nice little barb at the end there. No matter the 150 million installations and rising. We're all 'uninformed'. Splendid! Well I'll just get back to my out of touch, ignorant, computing life and leave you and your 'informed' consumers to scrabble around trying to make a silk ear out of Linux then. That is your sponsor, I assume?
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
9082365 wrote:
to make a silk ear out of Linux
:laugh:
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Yes, they could change the privacy policy in the future. But that doesn't mean that the privacy policy as currently worded gives them carte-blanche to collect whatever they want from your system and use it however they want. Next week, they could decide to update their privacy policy to say that you agree to give them your first born child. That doesn't mean they're coming to collect your baby today. And AFAIK, in most legal systems, one party cannot make and enforce unilateral changes to a contract without consent from the other party.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
Richard Deeming wrote:
And AFAIK, in most legal systems, one party cannot make and enforce unilateral changes to a contract without consent from the other party.
True but not strictly relevant in this case, particularly if you haven't paid for it. The real point is that the OS is an at will arrangement on your part. You are not tied in to anything. You can at any time simply stop using it in part or in whole (despite the paranoid insistence above use of Cortana and the like is entirely optional) without needing to give notice or explanation. Microsoft can enforce changes on the agreement in the sense that it's their club and their rules. But you are under no obligation to join the club or, having joined, see out your membership.
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Ancient Zygote wrote:
I don't think many informed consumers do
Oh, very good. Nice little barb at the end there. No matter the 150 million installations and rising. We're all 'uninformed'. Splendid! Well I'll just get back to my out of touch, ignorant, computing life and leave you and your 'informed' consumers to scrabble around trying to make a silk ear out of Linux then. That is your sponsor, I assume?
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
I didn't intend to insult anyone who has chosen to use Windows 10. I was simply noting, as did Forbes in their November 10, 2015 article "Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Secretly Installed On Windows 7, Windows 8", that there was not a lot of interest in Windows 10, or outright negative feelings about it, such that Microsoft began surreptitiously installing Win 10 on Win 7 and Win 8 customer computers in November without their permission after the initial 5.38% market share obtained in August 2015 slipped to about 1.4% increases in Sept and Oct 2015. So, many of the 200 million devices Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Windows and Devices Group at Microsoft, now using Windows 10 may not have made that choice voluntarily. In addition, since the IT world is just now beginning to realize what Windows 10 actually is, i.e., a SaaS platform with all user data on a PC now subject to transmission back to Microsoft, I intended to imply that many of the people who did actually voluntarily accept the free install of Windows 10 probably did so without realizing how great the change was from previous operating systems provided by Microsoft. I know it took me about a month of reading reports from IT folks before it began to sink in that this was unprecedented. It is amusing that Microsoft has been parrying the concerns about the invasion of privacy with Windows 10 and then Mehdi (introduced above) makes a crowing announcement recently highlighting statistics of exactly what Windows 10 users have been doing on their computers! Mehdi gives the minutes spent using the Edge browser, questions asked with Cortana, number of photos viewed with the Win 10 photo app, number of hours spent playing games on Windows 10, number of hours streaming xbox to Win 10 pc's, number of Bing queries made from Win 10 devices...Forbes asks, is Microsoft recording the actual Cortana queries? The answer according to the Micorosft privacy statements I have read, and their analysis by reputable tech industry analysts, is yes. Let me state again that I am not challenging Microsoft's right to do anything they like in a product or service they offer in the market, as long as that is a free market (not the monopoly on Intel compatible PCs that they have enjoyed since MSDOS) and the buyers voluntarily, knowing what they are purchasing, choose to use the product. When Windows 10 is to be preinstalled on all new PC's, that is monopoly behavior that really needs to be re-examined in light of the actual characteristics of this new product. I am surprised t
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I didn't intend to insult anyone who has chosen to use Windows 10. I was simply noting, as did Forbes in their November 10, 2015 article "Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Secretly Installed On Windows 7, Windows 8", that there was not a lot of interest in Windows 10, or outright negative feelings about it, such that Microsoft began surreptitiously installing Win 10 on Win 7 and Win 8 customer computers in November without their permission after the initial 5.38% market share obtained in August 2015 slipped to about 1.4% increases in Sept and Oct 2015. So, many of the 200 million devices Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Windows and Devices Group at Microsoft, now using Windows 10 may not have made that choice voluntarily. In addition, since the IT world is just now beginning to realize what Windows 10 actually is, i.e., a SaaS platform with all user data on a PC now subject to transmission back to Microsoft, I intended to imply that many of the people who did actually voluntarily accept the free install of Windows 10 probably did so without realizing how great the change was from previous operating systems provided by Microsoft. I know it took me about a month of reading reports from IT folks before it began to sink in that this was unprecedented. It is amusing that Microsoft has been parrying the concerns about the invasion of privacy with Windows 10 and then Mehdi (introduced above) makes a crowing announcement recently highlighting statistics of exactly what Windows 10 users have been doing on their computers! Mehdi gives the minutes spent using the Edge browser, questions asked with Cortana, number of photos viewed with the Win 10 photo app, number of hours spent playing games on Windows 10, number of hours streaming xbox to Win 10 pc's, number of Bing queries made from Win 10 devices...Forbes asks, is Microsoft recording the actual Cortana queries? The answer according to the Micorosft privacy statements I have read, and their analysis by reputable tech industry analysts, is yes. Let me state again that I am not challenging Microsoft's right to do anything they like in a product or service they offer in the market, as long as that is a free market (not the monopoly on Intel compatible PCs that they have enjoyed since MSDOS) and the buyers voluntarily, knowing what they are purchasing, choose to use the product. When Windows 10 is to be preinstalled on all new PC's, that is monopoly behavior that really needs to be re-examined in light of the actual characteristics of this new product. I am surprised t
Ancient Zygote wrote:
is Microsoft recording the actual Cortana queries
Yes, of course it is. It's a search engine (well an interface with Bing anyway). Most search engines retain questions you ask for all kinds of interesting reasons. See Google's trending stats, for example. But, for what nowseems to be the millionth time, using Windows 10 does not require you to use Cortana, nor Bing as your default search engine. It is an optional, additional service. It is not part of the OS.
Ancient Zygote wrote:
When Windows 10 is to be preinstalled on all new PC's
If that were true, and it is far from it, it would have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft. It is a choice made entirely by the manufacturers and sellers of PCs. Equally it is entirely the choice of the buyers to obtain their computer through those outlets that do preinstall Windows and, having done so, whether to keep it or install an alternative (a choice not afforded in any way to buyers of Apple computers, of course!) Like Google's, Microsoft's 'monopoly' is a posteriori, the result of producing the most sought after product. It is not the case that there is no competition and no option for the consumer.
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Ancient Zygote wrote:
is Microsoft recording the actual Cortana queries
Yes, of course it is. It's a search engine (well an interface with Bing anyway). Most search engines retain questions you ask for all kinds of interesting reasons. See Google's trending stats, for example. But, for what nowseems to be the millionth time, using Windows 10 does not require you to use Cortana, nor Bing as your default search engine. It is an optional, additional service. It is not part of the OS.
Ancient Zygote wrote:
When Windows 10 is to be preinstalled on all new PC's
If that were true, and it is far from it, it would have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft. It is a choice made entirely by the manufacturers and sellers of PCs. Equally it is entirely the choice of the buyers to obtain their computer through those outlets that do preinstall Windows and, having done so, whether to keep it or install an alternative (a choice not afforded in any way to buyers of Apple computers, of course!) Like Google's, Microsoft's 'monopoly' is a posteriori, the result of producing the most sought after product. It is not the case that there is no competition and no option for the consumer.
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
Cortana is going to be the primary interface to the Windows operating system. It assumes that role now in a development stage, which goes to the question of why Microsoft insists that any interaction with Cortana is subject to their remote transmission and analysis (this whole speech to text problem is a very difficult nut to crack and initially is requiring remote massive processing power and analysis). To assert that this is a minor problem since an IP address might be scrubbed is foolishness (you can hardly remove your name and other identifying data from an all-inclusive stream of anything you may say in interating with your personal computer, not to mention the data stored on the computer, which is also subject to use by MS). I realize you find this horrifying and don't want to believe it is happening (I'm with you in that reaction). Now as to installation of Windows 10 on most PC's in the future being an independent decision of OEM's (and chipmakers) and Microsoft having earned its place as a monopoly by offering a superior product in a free market, I'm not going to rehash decades of public record in the law. I'll just point you at one relevant court decision: 253 F. 3d 34 - Court of Appeals, Dist. of Columbia Circuit, 2001. This was the court favorable to Microsoft, the one that reversed Judge Jackson's order to break up Microsoft. However, they did not deny that Microsoft was a monopoly in the operating system market for Intel-compatible computers and maintained that position via illegal activity (e.g., polluting the Java code base, forcing Apple to use IE, forcing Intel to stop supporting Java, etc. etc.). If you will spend the time to read the entire court opinion, it is an astounding detailed factual account of the thuggish (I cannot avoid the use of that term) illegal conduct by Microsoft. There apparently was some kind of understanding reached with Bill Gates, since he withdrew from an active role in the company after that and only returned in 2014 (hence the frightening recent developments, grin). For earlier judicial comment on what Microsoft was doing to offer "the most sought after product," see Judge Stanley Sporkin's opinion 1995 in refusing to sign the consent decree to resolve US v Microsoft: http://www.justice.gov/atr/memorandum-opinion-us-v-microsoft-corp It does appear that Microsoft is trying to help Enterprise level customers turn off all of the remote telemetry in Windows 10: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85).aspx I had wondered abou
