[badfrog]

> Even on a simple calculator.

Why not? If they're paying people to build this software, they presumably want to make it good. With this data, they can learn all kinds of things to help improve future versions: when/why is it crashing, what features are people using most/least, are there patterns of clicks that suggest people are mis-understanding or mis-clicking certain features, etc, etc.

edit: Another one that's often useful is looking at different usage patterns across countries. For example, if nobody in Israel is using COSINE, then there's likely a problem with the right-to-left internationalization that you should fix.

[bhauer]

Virtually all of the complaints Microsoft receives about telemetry could be addressed by simply allowing people a global way to turn all telemetry for Microsoft apps off. If you want to support the improvement of apps by allowing this form of telemetry, you can leave it enabled. If you consider it a violation of your privacy, you should be able to easily turn it off.

There's a lack of user control and a lack of transparency. Even if you are a Windows 10 Enterprise user (lucky you, you can turn off system telemetry, unlike the plebes who run Windows 10 Professional), and you turn off telemetry for Windows as a whole, does that include the Calculator or not? Maybe it does. It's really unclear to most people.

[reaperducer]

If they're paying people to build this software, they presumably want to make it good.

I find it more likely that the real answer is they're trying to "maximize shareholder value." If Microsoft wanted to make good software, there are several thousand other things it could do other than collecting information on people using a calculator.

[justinclift]

> Why not? If they're paying people to build this software, ...

Even from people who Do Not Want their data collected for this purpose?