Where have they refused to be up front about any of this? As far as I'm aware, they have detailed all of those things except how exactly they anonymize the data, which I haven't seen anyone specifically ask them about.
There's no way to turn it off. It says it's turned off, and it's still sending shit to Redmond. That's unacceptable and deceptive. I do not use software that lies to me, period, paragraph.
You can turn it off via group policy if you have windows enterprise. If you just want to complain that the cheaper version doesn't have the feature you want, and you don't want to pay the higher price for the version that does have it, that's your right, but I don't have much sympathy for that.
It's also worth noting that it doesn't seem to be possible to buy Enterprise as a regular user, so it's not even a matter of me not wanting to spend the money as it's a matter of the company not giving me the option.
You can disable utcsvc and prevent it from being re-enabled. Since doing so also disables Windows updates (which is why you shouldn't do it) you can also be sure that future updates will not re-enable it.
You have to pay to have the option to not be spied on, because only the version designed to be used for serious business supports disabling the first-party tracking, because business users are important and home users are just another revenue channel.
I now have even less moral issue with not paying to use Windows for personal use. Seriously, they should have just made it free for home users regardless of Win7 license state (I've had terrible luck with "upgraded" versions of Windows -- clean installs only for me, and yes I know about the Insider program and the exception to this...I didn't stay up on the news and I missed the "must be installed by" deadline).
If it makes you feel better, my mother was on an insider build because we figured she would get Windows either free or at a discount, and she ended up having to buy retail anyway.
This point fails thrice:
- I am paying for Windows already, that we've established does spy on me
- The Enterprise edition is not available to be purchased by a regular consumer anywhere I can locate
- The Enterprise edition doesn't allow the disabling of ALL reporting to Redmond, only most, and only via group policy which is hardly accessible to the layman.
Your first point still makes no sense to me. You are paying for something that doesn't have a feature you like. A more expensive version does have the feature. What are you proposing instead? That you get a product with more features for the same price? Of course every buyer wants that for every product. And every seller wants the opposite.
Your second point is equally mystifying, since you've created an arbitrary definition of a "regular consumer" as someone who doesn't want to contact the sales office of the company you want to buy a product from.
Your third point is factually wrong and/or is based on a ridiculous definition of reporting. See sibling comments.
Exactly where you would expect to find it: the data use and access section of the technet article on the feature, and in the Windows privacy statement.
