TAKE THE
TIME TO LISTEN TO THE WHOLE VIDEO BELOW, AND YOU ARE IN FOR A RUDE
AWAKENING. AS YOU LISTEN IN TOTAL SHOCK ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO
AMERICANS ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE, YOU’LL WONDER
JUST WHAT COUNTRY IT IS WE ARE NOW LIVING IN!
WND reports:
Not interested in installing Windows 10 on your computer after reading news reports indicating Microsoft will track your online behavior and save your search queries, private emails and contents of private folders, including photos?
Too bad. You may not be given much of a choice.
Microsoft’s Windows 10 is preparing to
automatically download onto computers currently installed with Windows 7
or 8 – without the computer users’ knowledge, London’s Guardian reported.
According to the report, Microsoft
announced that Windows 10 will become a “recommended update” in 2016,
and anyone who has automatic updates activated will have the new program
installed automatically on their PC.
After it has downloaded, the Windows 10 installer will begin. At that point, users will need to actively cancel Windows 10
That is, if they aren’t in the habit of just hitting “OK” when presented with a prompt, as many users often do.
In the meantime, until 2016, the Windows
10 upgrade will be considered “optional” and could still be
downloaded if a user has the computer set to install automatic updates,
which can be disabled.
“If you choose to upgrade (our
recommendation!), then you will have 31 days to roll back to your
previous version if you don’t love it,” said Terry Myerson, executive
vice president of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices group.
Just weeks ago, Forbes reported Microsoft claimed an “accident” caused the downloads to begin installing on many computers without user permission.
As WND reported in August,
a report from Newsweek warned: “From the moment an account is created,
Microsoft begins watching. The company saves customers’ basic
information – name, contact details, passwords, demographic data and
credit card specifics.”
“But it also digs a bit deeper,” the report says.
“Other information Microsoft saves
includes Bing search queries and conversations with the new digital
personal assistant Cortana; contents of private communications such as
email; websites and apps visited (including features accessed and length
of time used); and contents of private folders,” the warning explains.
“Furthermore, ‘your typed and handwritten words’ are collected.’”
All of the warnings come from the
company’s software privacy statement, which includes the statement that
Microsoft collects information “to provide you a personalized user
dictionary, help you type and write on your device with better character
recognition, and provide you with text suggestions as you type or
write.”
Alec Meer at the RockPaperShotgun blog warned it’s not something that should be ignored.
“Unless you pay close attention to the
fluffy options offered when you first install Microsoft’s new operating
system, it’s going to quietly track your behavior and use it to fire
targeted ads at you, as well as keeping tabs on your location history,
data from messages, calendars, contacts and God knows what else.”
The blog noted that “some of this stuff”
can be turned off, but the key point is that people “aren’t so hot”
about paying for tools to access the Web and such, so “the money comes
from harvesting data and flogging it to advertisers and other
organizations who want to know exactly what we’re all up to online.”
FOR MORE NEWS BY VOICE OF REASON CLICK HERE!
He continued, “If you ever wondered why
they’ve made the Windows 10 upgrade free to Win 7 & 8 users, here’s
one possible answer. Windows 10 has all sorts of user tracking baked
right in.”
The Daily Mail reported another complication with the software last summer.
The update to Windows 10, the report said,
“automatically made [a man's] porn collection into a slideshow and used
it as a screensaver. And to make matters worse, the malfunction was
discovered by his wife, who was greeted by the explicit images first
thing in the morning.”
The report said a user posted the story
online so others would not repeat the mistake, which reportedly happened
when the images were saved into the “My Pictures” folder. It is from
that folder the software draws data to build slideshows, the report
said.
“I have no idea how to shut that feature
off and that computer is staying shut down until I do,” the man wrote,
according to the Mail. “Free Windows and a free trip to the doghouse.
Thanks Microsoft!”
In August, Newsweek reported an estimated 14 million machines already were running Windows 10.
“The company says it uses the data
collected for three purposes: to provide and improve its services; to
send customers personalized promotions; and to display targeted
advertising, which sometimes requires the information be shared with
third parties.”
The report said Microsoft’s practices
actually are similar to Google’s, which analyzes the content of users’
emails to provide a “more personalized product.”
Online privacy group European Digital Rights told the Times that the MS policy not only was bad news for privacy.
“Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis,” the group said.
Kirsten Fiedler, of EDR, told the Mail,
“Microsoft basically grants itself the right to collect and process
everything you do, say and write on your device – which is contrary to
the fundamental right to privacy.”
The RockPaperShotgun blog posted some instructions for opting out of the Microsoft data collection plan.
The actions won’t, the blog said, reduce the ads seen.
“But they do mean that not quite so much
information about you will be gathered and sold, and also that the ads
you do see won’t be ‘relevant’ to what algorithms have decided your
interests are.”
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