HiddenLayer555

The point is that it's a loophole in privacy laws so they don't have to outright tell people that they collect personal or identifying information. So they can legally mislead people by claiming it's anonymous telemetry in hopes that users don't actually look into it or understand the implications.

Ad firm money.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but my first instinct when I see stuff like this is they have a secret contract with an advertiser and are selling this information.

Like if you're going to use Arch btw, go all the way and use actual Arch.

Those are absolutely ways of covertly identifying your device while technically not counting as "personal information" under privacy laws.

It's not fucking over Microsoft, it's prevent Microsoft from fucking us over. Microsoft is not the victim in this.

Easiest way to do this: Turn the modem off after bed time (you will also lose internet)

Most expensive but still easy way to do this: Buy a "smart router" with time-based parental controls (lets you use the internet at night).

Nerd way to do this: Pihole with a script that enables and disables certain blocklists at certain times (free and open source, because fuck "smart" products)

Also isn't English the only European language not to call Pineapples some variation of "ananas"?

We call them "dirt beans" in Mandarin which is an improvement I guess?

Can't wait to have Google's telemetry injected into my Linux apps

I'd argue that the internet has made this problem worse, not better.

In fact, I'd argue that the internet has taken away tons of people's ability to admit they're wrong because there's always an echo chamber that will support you on even the dumbest of beliefs and anyone fact checking anyone is seen as the enemy. You see this on places like Facebook and YouTube comments where someone will make a claim, other people will think it makes sense on a cursory glance and express their agreement, then someone who actually knows what they're talking about will politely correct them and everyone will gang up on them because they've disrupted the vibe, and simply because of that the unanimous decision is made that the correct answer is in fact wrong and is a government conspiracy.