Cortana still spies on you, and now can't be turned off

I had a feeling that I'd made the right choice by not switching to Windows 10, and I was right.

From PC World:

Microsoft made an interesting decision with Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, which is now in its final stages of development before it rolls out on August 2.
Cortana, the personal digital assistant that replaced Windows 10’s search function and taps into Bing’s servers to answer your queries with contextual awareness, no longer has an off switch.

The impact on you at home: Similar to how Microsoft blocked Google compatibility with Cortana, the company is now cutting off the plain vanilla search option. That actually makes a certain of amount of sense. Unless you turned off all the various cloud-connected bits of Windows 10, there’s not a ton of difference between Cortana and the operating system's basic search capabilities.

[...]

But what if you still don’t want to use Cortana at all?

Refusing to download the Anniversary Update is not an option. You can delay it, but since Windows 10 updates are mandatory for home users, you’ll eventually receive the update—and its unkillable Cortana

Microsoft, it's shit like this that's making me hate you.

PC World goes on to describe some strategies for limiting Cortana's intrusions into your privacy, like setting limits on Cortana, or using a 3rd party alternative to Cortana, but both of those recommendations rather miss the point. Microsoft is facing regulatory action in France because of Windows 10's unjustifiable intrusions into users' privacy, including a number of "features" that touch on Cortana, and Microsoft have just made all of that worse by making Cortana something you can't even opt out of anymore -- something else that CNIL is calling them out for, incidentally.

But wait: it gets worse! Did you have Cortana disabled? Well, the Anniversary Update will turn Cortana back on, in spite of your wishes... and it's mandatory. Fuck your reasonable expectation of privacy, Microsoft has money to make off your back, and your data, and they don't care what you think. At all.

I'd been threatening for months to explore dual-booting between Windows 7 and Linux, as an alternative to Windows 10. Well, I've got a long week-end coming up, and Microsoft are going out of their way to convince folks like me that it's finally time to take the Linux plunge.