Thanks for sharing this article. It is deeply concerning what MS is doing these days, just when I thought they'd be heading in the right direction with their improved accessibility and friendlier customer support since 8.
I don't think we can completely disable all the unseen things they have embedded, but this might help just a bit: https://github.com/WindowsLies/BlockWindows

Rob

What information do these updates collect? I'm just curious.

Thanks for the info. I wonder how many this will drive away. I am guessing not many. The more I think about the more I wonder what other devices got the treetment. I remember seeing something somewhere at sometime about apple collecting surten data. Then there was the google cars that was driving around and collecting the wifi info for google maps or something. What I am saying is that it isn't just MS we have to worry about. We have to worry, to some degree, about all the devices that we use that are connected to the net.

Hi sebby and all.
Well this is the problem.
Potential privacy concerns have come up and ms is being monitered by several governments world wide.
THe same stuff happened with google and facebook.
And adjusting your privacy settings where possible is the key.
That aside a sharade is in fact what it is.
What is privacy.
Sertainly privacy is keeping yourself private.
If you have windows xp or earlier and never use the net then you are private.
With all the clouds and the net as it is right now, privacy is some what muted at this point.
By being online I am broadcasting my country and city generally, yess I can tell sites not to track me but I am still broadcasting that info.
When I use gmail, I loose info, same with dropbox etc.
WHen you search for something you loose the info you search for, someone loggs that windows asside.
When you subscribe to anything or pay for something even with paypal, your info goes somewhere.
Even your most personal info is probably stored on a cloud somewhere.
A lot of your info is on public record.
So your location, your full address in some cases, your email.
You want updating tiles of info weather reports, location based gps, maps and other junk?
You want one drive or access to cloud services.
And you want all this for little cost.
Guess what that doesn't come cheap.
So you loose your info, you gain more than you loose and while yes the bad guys use the same ways its not like they wouldn't find you if they really wanted to.
Ok with that said there are some things you can do.
1. your default settings are not the best, they are just defaults.
Both for you and security etc you really do need to change those you want to or need to change.
Personalised info and adds, well having done marketing level2 in uni its all part of the business game.
You actually want people to buy your stuff.
In turn you want to keep your consumers coming for more of your stuff.
I have several department stores which send me specials and other adds via mail.
I have club cards with these.
So yeah they have all my private data, I can still choose to accept the stuff I  want.
Sometimes I do if needed, sometimes I don't sometimes I just come in and look.
Ok, with that out the way, there are 2 issues with the new approach.
If a company does not manage security well or sells info or something bad then yeah its bad.
Though I wouldn't worry about ms, google or facebook doing this any time soon.
Since we are a big part of their business jepidising that business is a no brainer you don't do it.
Stopping pirated software, was one thing people did wander about.
And from being a pirate in the late 90s early 2000s I can safely say that with the amount of low cost to free software, from office to email clients while piracy still exists its not like the fight against the system back in the day.
Music, well if you stay with the mainstream, don't buy the cheaper disks etc then well.
Buying direct seems to be cheaper and this can go for books to, shop round.
Back to software like windows though even your feadback and error reports send info.
Even by sending this forum a post I am sending sertain info.
By being online I am sending info and yes by my vary existance info from time to time is sent.
Ok now if you stupidly post stupid things or become a terrorist, or pirate an large amount of something enough to piss someone off its not my problem really.
Generally while many collect your info no one is interested brousing everything its not feesable anyway and why would you do it.
What we should be concerned about is the spam, so called anti spy and other programs from this.
I will now give you examples of a couple things to demonstrate my points.
1.  I think it was back in 2003 maybe 2006 I forget there was a news item on the google street view and google maps and gps showing people's houses explaining they could be easily robbed.
There were concerns about privacy, yet we all use gps, and google maps on a daily basis.
THe same with facebook youtube and google generally came up.
And while there were issues to fix, security to update and settings on the user end to set, and in some case settings to impliment by those in charge it was fixed.
Another thing happened in y2k.
Yes the world will end bbecause of computers not recognising the date right.
Loads of supposedly good programs came in to fix this some costing cash.
In the end it turned out that manufacturers had been aware of this 4 years previous to y2k and had fixed the issue.
For those that didn't some like toshiba previded drivers for their systems for that issue to be resolved.
This is just another of these things.
I know in 7 and maybe 8 ms collect diagnostic info about your hardware, etc and makes sure stuff is working right.
How to avoid privacy issues.
You can avoid most of the issues in fact by not using your ms account all the time.
However if you have a twitter, facebook and or a mobile device, apple, android and such you are allready in the cloud.
You will have set your settings right to.
If in doubt get a password manager like keepass and maybe a auto fform filler like roboform which is good.
Firefox and noscript is good to full control.
So in conclusion, sure be concerned about this new whatever it is don't be complacent.
But don't join the scare waggon either.
Remember when the cloud was just an experiment, this has barely been a couple months of win 10 people and allready everyone is up in arms.
I tell you now by the end of the year or early next year it will be under the bridge.
And ms and others will get feadback and ms is listening to it.
Learn your os and adjust it accordingly.
If you are one of those that don't use the cloud, twitter, gmail, gps, or an advanced smart phone chances are you  are allready in someone elses cloud.
Controling who has access to it is the issue and will dominate this space for years to come, as each new technology comes up the same things come up from privacy to security.
And remember everyone is human here.
Oh and remember your do not spy software may be loaded with malware itselff.
I did donate early in the week on a bit of anti spying software, but in the end chose to not install it because of reviews saying it was loaded with adds, trogens and crypto lockers.
Sadly anything like the current techno drama brings out all the bad guys to.
Wait for it to simmer down a bit and the truth, the real truth will come out.
And well if it doesn't it will be hell to pay for someone, that doesn't happen to often of late.
Just remember that secure and private may not mean secure and private.
I listen to a radio show on local radio each saturday with a tech segment and learn a lot of info through that
http://www.radionz.co.nz/thiswayup is the show link to that.
This will be all I post on here.
the same thing came up on the nvda list some time back.

Does it collect on windows 10? if so. I will turn of this update immediately.

@Chris: it's anonymous usage and crash data, so-called "Telemetry". Obviously some people will have no problem with this, but it does include potentially sensitive information, and unless you feel a particular obligation to send it, you shouldn't have to. MS have since clarified that the "Customer Experience Improvement Program", which these updates largely affect, can be managed by the user, but unfortunately it does appear that Windows is still talking to the network even with these settings completely disabled. So, unless you want your box chattering away to the mothership, remove the updates. You can't just install everything any more.

@mario: yes, that script runs under Win7, Win8/8.1, and Win10. Be careful with it.

@CW and @Crashmaster: you're right, everybody is in this game to a certain extent, and I'm not suggesting you stop caring about the others or privacy as a whole. However, this move from MS is in my mind the most blatant demonstration that they are no longer in the business of just selling software products. Now they want your data too. They are the old Google. This is shocking betrayal, plain and simple. Windows 10 is free--you're the product. For Google and Facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter and other services, this was always true, so no surprises there. Do no evil, my arse. I don't trust Android with its deep ties to Google services, but Chrome is a much safer venue and has well-defined boundaries and policies. Apple are in the hardware business, so their agenda does not yet include data collection, although this will naturally occur if it happens to benefit their hardware business, for example iCloud and Siri being foisted on us. With Apple, so far anyway, it's largely straightforward to say "No". The Spotlight Suggestions issue is a fairly good illustration of this: on by default, but two checkboxes to turn off, and whatever is sent is whatever you typed and not collected behind your back. Likewise, anything you are doing that naturally requires you reveal some information, like browse the Internet, is only revealing as much information as is really required. The point is that you, not somebody else, should be the ultimate arbiter of what happens to your data. If you intentionally give away your data, for need or want, then that's fine. But if somebody else, say MS, does it, without giving you a choice, then that is not fine.

The only true safe harbour, right now, is Linux! Such a shame Linux accessibility is so terrible for us. Ubuntu does a similar thing to Apple's Spotlight, but you can turn that off, but probably just don't use Ubuntu. I can't think of anyone else.

Other than fixing my XP laptop or finding the installation disk (would a 32bit XP installer work on a 64bit machine?), how would one go about upgrading to XP? This sounds like less of a headache than trying to learn a new OS.

I doubt you'll experience problems just being disconnected, you just won't send any data, perhaps until you come back online.

I don't think using XP is viable anymore, simply because it's out of support and you aren't guaranteed that new hardware or software will ever work with it. Obviously there are those who will brave the waters anyway, either because they've taken precautions or because they just prefer to take the risks and stay put over upgrading. No, XP doesn't support SSD--at least, not natively. Neither does Vista. Be sure to use the WiPOS hack to get updates for XP if you use it full-time, and use alternatives to Microsoft programs. I just have it in a VM on a Mac and use it for games and other occasional Windows things. As my conversations with Dark on this issue at various times spell out, I think you are better off moving on, even though the choices are fairly crappy across the board at this point. Of course I am bound to suggest Mac, which is where I am myself, though you could always look into Chrome or iOS too.

Why? They've tasted data and they like it a lot.

In somewhat related news, there's a new update to Fusion for Mac, version 8. One of the noticeable things for us is that PC speaker is now emulated for Mac too. And the virtual machine makes a beep when it powers up. If you want a virtual XP machine, you can really have one, beep and all, retro-style!

Thanks for that CW. Yeah, so basically, MS says it's all fine and dandy, honest. I don't trust them. Until I'm certain the optout is clean and effective, I'm going to continue recommending the cautious approach of just not installing the spyware--because that's what this is, spyware.

And what's even worse is that what ms did, they basically told all antivirus companies, hey, you better not kill us for this, our software isn't spyware! but it clearly is. But antivirus companies were blindsided just as hard as everyone else.

Yes, that's it. Linux respects the user. It doesn't do what you haven't asked it to do. The critical issue is that if the OS is going behind your back then you aren't in control of your privacy any longer. I'm not a paranoid freak, but I believe in your right to privacy.

I've read at least one first-hand account of MS looking up diagnostic data by IP, though. That means they have the power to investigate you if they know your IP address which, let's face it, is hard to keep much of a secret. Then the data includes process memory images, which makes it rather hard to believe there may not be sensitive data inside. And, if you're running a screen reader, your machine is already pretty special as it is.

Just say no ...