Microsoft released Windows 10 last week. It was installed 14m times in its first 24 hours of availability and gained a generally warm reception from critics. So what’s the problem?
In a word: privacy. In the days since the launch, hundreds of users took to social media and online forums to suggest that the default settings in Windows 10 are designed to harvest personal information in a way that infringe on users’ privacy.
When users start using the software, Microsoft saves lots of basic information about them, such as names, contact details and passwords.
But Windows 10 goes further. It collects contents of private communications such as email, websites and downloaded apps, as well as the contents of private folders. It collects search queries from its Bing search engine, and conversations users have with Cortana, the voice-activated digital assistant. The company’s privacy statement says “your typed and handwritten words are collected”.
In the company’s new terms of service, it says: “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.”
Users are given the option to opt out of much of this data collection, but critics say that most consumers will be unaware of the scale of the collection and will not review their privacy settings.
Why is Microsoft collecting this much information?
Microsoft says the information enables it to improve services, allowing it to understand how users are actually using Windows 10 which means it can make improvements
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