[bjpbakker]

> For reference, they collect

That's not all that matters. IMO the real decision is: do you /trust/ MS ? Do you trust that they anonymize collected data and that they won't secretly change collected data? Do you trust future MS with that information.

> I'm actually OK with this to be honest

That's perfectly fine if you trust them. Many people don't. Personally I wouldn't trust any dev tool that uploads my usage.

[lightbyte]

>That's not all that matters. IMO the real decision is: do you /trust/ MS ? Do you trust that they anonymize collected data and that they won't secretly change collected data? Do you trust future MS with that information.

You don't need to trust them. The telemetry code is open source AND they release the aggregate data it collects for anyone to use/inspect.

[msla]

If it's completely open, how do they keep it from being spammed?

[FooBarWidget]

> do you /trust/ MS ?

Why do you have to trust MS? You can read the source code to check for yourself whether sensitive information is sent. You don't have to take Microsoft's word for it.

[JadeNB]

> That's not all that matters. IMO the real decision is: do you /trust/ MS ? Do you trust that they anonymize collected data and that they won't secretly change collected data? Do you trust future MS with that information.

Bear with me. This seems like the wrong question, but not for the reason you might expect. Rather, I think that it might be wrong because, even if Microsoft acts in completely good faith, it is damn near impossible to anonymise collected data properly [obligatory citation of the 'anonymised' AOL search data]. It doesn't matter whether I trust someone to do something if they (probably) can't do it.

[pjmlp]

So I assume you don't use web apps.

[vetinari]

These tools are not web apps. They work entirely on a local machine. Their fundamental mode of operation is not to run on a remote machine.