Telemetry is this loaded word that is essentially a double edged sword. Tech journalists have overwhelmingly failed readers by not erecting a wall of separation between telemetry for statistical software quality and telemetry for adware.
Ensuring that this separation would be difficult and only lead to "killing innovation" is the collective work result of billions invested by BigTech: a few lone tech journalists are no match against that and some even have to feed a family.
Realistically the journalists ought to be inventing a new word for the deceitful data theft stuff.
Just who is left with the responsibility to invent 'words of opposition' is debatable, influencers follow the money and ensure that any type of regulation gets shot down before it harms the Grand Data Theft.
Microsoft trying to streamline bug zapping/performance measuring is not a bad thing. (1)
Conversely,
Microsoft trying to siphon your data so that they can greedily target you for more accurate advertising meaning they can charge an advertiser more money is an entirely bad thing. (2)
The idea that the end result of The Great Data theft is only more or better targeted ads, is one of the tales carefully spun by BigTech, because everyone can still ignore them, right? Influencing will go as deep as it needs to go to obtain results, dependency and addiction a choice that always tends to choose itself. You don't think that M$ bought LinkedIn and Github just to sell ads, do you?
And it something they are flat guilty of. If journalists would do a better job of never calling this telemetry we could stop fearing the first one. It may be a bit rosy glasses to call #1 innocent, but its not rooted in the classical one-sided greed found in the adware model. When Microsoft makes your software more performant or gets rid of bugs you do obviously reap the benefit of it.
Again, to focus on adware means seeing only the tip of the iceberg: they want to watch every one of your ideas develop and analyse (now at your cost, thanks to CoPilot & Co) what they can get out of it: it's insight trading.
Google started this or at least became the modern mainstream king of the adware model. Microsoft "merely" followed Google's adware model within Android and copied it thus turning their offering into Windows 11 Advertising Edition.
Google, Facebook, WeChat and the others including the so called content industry have taken different paths, but the results overlap ever more: they want to be inside any relationship and transaction between individuals and collectives to siphon off as much of the value that those might generate for them.
It's the ultimate parasite, a preferably private taxation of everything and obviously in conflict with any type of sovereignty, from the individual to beyond individual governments.
And that's why BigTech needs to be crumbled into very tiny little bits, because that parasitic graft is the only goal of their so called innovation.
And I'm not even accusing these BigTech companies to have consciously started on this path originally. It just happens to be where evolution leads them following the money. And no commercial entity can avoid doing that, so regulation is the only counter measure with any chance of success (apart from disasters or resource collaps).
Of course, they've since lost all their puppy innocense.
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