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Microsoft collects diagnostic data, aka telemetry, from every Windows PC.
Some Windows customers are convinced, without evidence, that this is a form of spying.
If you're concerned, you can use a free utility to inspect this data for yourself.
When Windows 10 was released in 2015, it was immediately controversial, with critics zeroing in on one feature in particular: telemetry.
I spent many months in those early days reading one article after another on the subject that read, in retrospect, like entries from the diary of a mad conspiracy theorist. As I wrote at the time, those critics believed that Windows 10 was "basically a 1984 telescreen come to life. They are convinced that with Windows 10 Microsoft has built a spying apparatus not seen since the height of the Cold War, scraping up every detail of your life and feeding it back to Redmond."
Also by Ed Bott: Microsoft has lost its way
I vividly recall interrupting a vacation in South America on my birthday in 2015 for a one-on-one phone call with a senior Microsoft executive to discuss Windows 10 telemetry. They were as unhappy as I was about the situation.
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