I didn't think this was a controversial assertion. Most big techs have been collecting plenty of information that is non-essential for their functions.
For instance, you must have an apple account (that includes your personal details) just to get MacOS security updates. Why is that necessary if you don't intend to buy any software from the store?
It's necessary so if anyone ever feel like buying something from the store they don't need to register. It reduces the chance that they will 'bounce' and not buy. It's that simple.
I know that is the reason. I strongly disagree in that qualifying as a necessary thing to do.
If that was accepted as necessary data collection, GDPR wouldn't have made any fuss whatsoever: big techs would keep collecting all the data they wanted because "it is necessary to reduce the chance that we won't earn buckets of money".
For instance, you must have an apple account (that includes your personal details) just to get MacOS security updates. Why is that necessary if you don't intend to buy any software from the store?