Windows 10 est assez bon, dit CNIL.

Score one for Microsoft, I guess - it looks like French regulators have been appeased.

From Tech Republic:

Microsoft has scaled back the volume of data it collects from Windows 10 PCs by 'almost half', leading French authorities to drop their threat of a fine.

The French regulator CNIL today announced that Windows 10 is no longer in breach of the country's data protection laws, following changes to how the OS handles user privacy. Microsoft had previously faced the threat of a fine of up to €150,000 ($158,000) if Windows 10 wasn't brought into compliance with French data protection rules.

Since the notice was issued to Microsoft in July last year, Windows 10 has almost halved the volume of data it collects when the user picks the 'Basic' telemetry setting, according to a notice issued by CNIL.

Other positive changes highlighted by CNIL include Microsoft making it clearer that devices will be tied to an ID used for advertising purposes and making it easier for users to opt-out.

[...]

While Swiss data protection and privacy regulator FDPIC also dropped its enforcement action related to Windows 10 earlier this year, Microsoft has faced questions about Windows 10 telemetry from an EU data protection body. In February, the EU's Article 29 Working Party, said it "remained concerned about the level of protection of users' personal data".

At the time of publication, a spokesperson for the Article 29 Working Party had not responded to a request for comment about whether subsequent changes to Windows 10 had addressed its concerns.

The changes made weren't actually all that substantial (Paul Thurrott described them as "privacy theatre"), and since Microsoft had always maintained that all of the data it was harvesting via telemetry was essential, the simple fact that they were able to reduce mandatory data collection by half and still be collecting everything they "needed" pretty clearly reveals that their statements on data collection have always been at least 50% bullshit.

It's an open question whether CNIL's threatened penalties actually forced Microsoft to change anything, either. Microsoft had already applied for, and received, multiple extensions to CNIL's deadlines, and with the EU's Article 29 Working Party already on the case by the time the Creators Update changes came into effect, it's entirely possible that the much bigger threat of EU regulatory action was actually the determining factor behind the changes made to date.

Those EU regulators are still a potential thorn in Microsoft's side, and there's still a possibility that they'll mandate the kind of changes that Windows 7 holdouts, among others, have been calling for, but the chances of further meaningful change arising from European regulatory action appear to be dimming. It's still an open question whether consumer pressure, in the form of stagnant Windows 10 adoption rates, can still do the job, but after nearly two years of slow-to-stagnant adoption, it's looking less likely that Microsoft will respond to that pressure, either, especially since the Universal Windows Platform initiative appears to be nearly dead, anyway.

So, for the moment, nothing changes that hadn't changed already, while we wait for EU regulators to decide whether they'll also be appeased, as independent Swiss and French regulatory bodies have been already. I'll be keeping an eye on this one, but I'm less hopeful than I was a week ago.

Windows 10's still-lacking user privacy controls not good enough for the EU

Call me cynical, but this didn't surprise me.

From Reuters:

European Union data protection watchdogs said on Monday they were still concerned about the privacy settings of Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system despite the U.S. company announcing changes to the installation process.

The watchdogs, a group made up of the EU's 28 authorities responsible for enforcing data protection law, wrote to Microsoft last year expressing concerns about the default installation settings of Windows 10 and users' apparent lack of control over the company's processing of their data.

The group - referred to as the Article 29 Working Party -asked for more explanation of Microsoft's processing of personal data for various purposes, including advertising.

"In light of the above, which are separate to the results of ongoing inquiries at a national level, even considering the proposed changes to Windows 10, the Working Party remains concerned about the level of protection of users’ personal data," the group said in a statement which also acknowledged Microsoft's willingness to cooperate.

Microsoft was not immediately available to comment.

A number of national authorities have already begun enquiries into Windows 10, including France which in July ordered Microsoft to stop collecting excessive user data.

A regulatory ruling by the EU would effectively apply in every EU country, though, excluding Switzerland and (soon enough) the U.K. but including basically everyone else, which could be a significant problem for Microsoft. If nothing else, this keeps Windows 10's privacy issues inconveniently front and centre at a time when Microsoft would very much like this particular topic of discussion to just die, already, which can't be at all helpful as they try to lure more Enterprise users into adopting the platform.

I'm sure that Microsoft were hoping that their legal and regulatory issues with Windows 10 were a thing of the past. This latest news from the EU is a pretty clear sign that they're very much an ongoing issue.

Windows 10's market share creeps upwards, along with Windows 7's

Happy New Year!

It's not just the first day of 2017, it's also the first day of a whole new month, which means NetMarketShare has posted new OS Market Share numbers for the month just ended.

To recap, the end of November/start of December looked like this:

with Windows 7 & 8 finally losing some market share to Windows 10, after Microsoft ended sales of the older OS versions.

The end of December/start of January, however, looks like this:

Yes, Windows 7 appears to be right back to it's end of October/start of November level, meaning that last month's market share dip was probably just statistical noise. Windows 10 has managed to tick upwards by 0.64%, but that's significantly less than Windows 8's 1.11% drop, meaning that Windows 8's losses didn't all translate into gains for Redmond's new OS.

Oddly, Windows XP also ticked up slightly after ticking downward last month, but since that's been XP's pattern for several months now, it's probably also just statistical noise at this point; Linux also ticked down slightly after ticking up last month, which is also likely to be noise in NetMarketShare's data.

The only OS version showing what looks like a meaningful shift is OS X El Capitan (10.11), which dropped 0.38% while MacOS Sierra (10.12) gained 0.10% -- again, not exactly a shift from 10.11 to 10.12, and 10.12's uptick is in the same sub-1% range as the likely noise that we're seeing for other OS versions.

So, what does it all mean? Here's my take.

With Windows 7 & 8 no longer available for purchase, we're not going to see any significant gains for either OS, but Windows 10 is not rushing in to fill the gap, either. People are just not switching, now that switching isn't free anymore, and they're not buying new PCs, either, and I'm not expecting the upcoming Creator's Update to cause a significant in shift either trend, especially after the bungled Anniversary Update rollout left such a bad taste in so many mouths.

A fresh year might mean fresh budgets for both business and governmental IT departments, but the economy is not so robust (anywhere, really) for IT departments to be planning to buy all new hardware for their users, and that seems to be the only way that new Windows 10 installations are happening. Microsoft had made avoiding GWX nearly impossible for non-technically savvy users, too, meaning that there's no-one using Windows 7 who doesn't know a thing or two about their PCs... which probably also means that a fair few IT professionals are included in their numbers, something which, if true, will complicate Redmond's efforts to push Win10 onto enterprise PCs to no end.

Windows 10 has, by hook and by crook, achieved a significant footprint in the OS marketplace, so it can't be deemed a failure, exactly, but new gains are going to come very slowly from here on out, which spells trouble for a company that went all in on an entirely new way of doing every aspect of their business. Windows 7, meanwhile, is looking to be every bit the new XP that Microsoft clearly feared it would be, steadily and stubbornly occupying a huge chunk of the OS landscape, with users who are simply refusing to abandon a perfectly functional OS unless and until they absolutely must.

It seems inarguable now that Microsoft did a lot of damage to their own brand and reputation with the GWX campaign, and while they're finally starting to acknowledge that simple fact, the damage remains well and truly done; it doesn't look like users are in much of a rush to embrace anything new from Microsoft, regardless of the hype behind it. The hard part, for Redmond, is that gaining consumers' trust is not easy, and regaining it, after pissing it away, is even harder. I'm not saying that it's not possible, but it's going to take a lot more than a mildly self-pitying statement from their CMO to shift hearts and minds that have been hardening against them for more than a year now.

Do they have it in them, to do more? I guess we'll see. We're still awaiting details of the deal that they're doing with CNIL to avoid regulatory penalties in France, which will probably be our first hint of just how much Redmond is willing to change their struggling corporate strategy, but I have a feeling that they'll need to do more than just the legally-required minimum in order to truly turn things around; right now, simple inertia has Windows 10 stalled in its own tracks, and Windows 7 digging in for a long, long stay. If they want to change that narrative, then Satya Nadella's team have a lot of work to do, work with only gets harder, the longer they wait to start doing it.

CNIL gives Microsoft more time to get their homework done

I supposed this really shouldn't have surprised me.

From Tech Republic:

Microsoft has asked for more time to make Windows 10's data collection comply with French data protection law.

In the summer, the chair of France's National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) claimed that Microsoft's flagship OS violated the French data protection act and highlighted the "seriousness of the breaches".

Microsoft was given three months to change how Windows 10 collects data about users in order to comply with the act. Now Microsoft has asked the CNIL for more time to respond to the authority's formal notice and has been given an extension until January next year. If Windows 10 still doesn't comply after this point the company could be fined up to €150,000.

So, there you have it Windows 10 users -- your entirely valid privacy concerns will not be addressed by Microsoft at all until next year, when they'll probably do the bare minimum to comply with French laws, and find some way to keep those changes exclusive to France. More and more, I find myself glad that I didn't switch to Windows 10.

Did I mention yet that Zorin and Fedora have new, improved versions out this week, that are specifically geared to the needs of people switching from Windows 10?

What's up with Microsoft and CNIL?

On July 20th, France's National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) served notice to Microsoft to fix Windows 10's privacy deficiencies, or else.

The deficiencies included:

• excessive or irrelevant collection of data (i.e. telemetry); 
• inadequate security with the PIN system used to secure users' accounts;
• the ability of Windows' and other parties’ apps to monitor user activity and offer targeted advertising without obtaining users’ consent;
• lack of information regarding, and no option to block, cookies; and 
• continuing to transfer data outside the EU on a "safe harbour" basis, which violates an Oct. 2015 decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Microsoft was given three months to address these issues, and at the time said that they were happy to work with the CNIL to work towards an acceptable solution. Again, that was in July, on the 21st.

That three-month deadline, Oct. 20th, has come and gone, without so much as a peep from either Microsoft or CNIL. So, what's happening?

That's not a rhetorical question; I'd really like to know. Because I've been googling "Microsoft CNIL" for a couple of weeks now, and... nothing. Is anyone in the actual journalism business asking this question of CNIL's press service, or of their own contacts inside CNIL? Because journalists are supposed to have some of those, aren't they? Why isn't any follow-up reporting being done on this story?

Satya Nadella makes hilarious claims about Windows 10's open-ness

Seriously, you can't make this shit up.

From ZDNet:

When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he asked what the company's place in the world is, and how it could make the biggest contribution.

What he kept coming back to was that the company builds things that empower people to build their own things. When he looked at Microsoft, he saw software that could be a force to "democratize and empower people."

Nadella articulated what that vision means for the future of Azure, Windows, Office, Cortana, Linkedin, and more during his keynote address--on a telepresence link--at Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2016 in Orlando on Tuesday.

In conversation with Gartner analysts that featured lots of Nadella's usual well-crafted, nuanced statements, he also boldly declared:

"Windows is the most open platform there is."

Really? Windows? Not Linux, or FreeBSD, which are both open source and both free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer?

Sure, the Windows platform overall, from Windows 95 to Windows 7, has been open in the sense that anybody who wanted to write Windows software could do so -- Microsoft didn't have the ability to vet every piece of Windows software before it was released, and so didn't try to control what developers did or didn't sell for use on the platform. 

By Windows 8, though, Microsoft was already working hard to change all of that. Win8 was extremely unpopular, in no small part because it turned peoples' desktops into iOS-style App Stores, which Microsoft curated, all while taking a cut of all proceeds -- the very definition of a "walled garden," in other words, which is exactly the opposite of open. Windows 10, with its Universal Windows Platform and Windows Store bullshit baked right in, is significantly worse, not better.

The trend has clearly been going in the wrong direction for years... which is why Nadella is making this ridiculous claim to a roomful of Gartner analysts in the first place. It's damage control.

But wait! It gets better worse:

The other topic where Microsoft's approach to data privacy came up was Cortana, the company's AI-powered virtual assistant that is competing in an increasingly crowded field that includes players such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and IBM Watson.
Nadella highlighted several key principles in Microsoft's approach to privacy on Cortana:

• Whatever data we have, we have to keep it secure
• Provide transparency (users know what Cortana knows about them and can control it)
• Be compliant with regulations

That last seems to be a reference to CNIL's regulatory action, to which Microsoft is required to make an official response in the very near future. ZDNet's bullet points kinda gloss over what Nadella actually said about Cortana, though, which is a shame because it's amazeballs.

IDG's Good Gear Guide has the goods:

Cortana will operate on "four pillars," which include keeping data secure, as well transparency, meaning that users will "know exact what Cortana knows," said Nadella. There is also an ability to turn off data access. The fourth pillar is to be compliant with regulations, he said.

I've highlighted the missing pillar (i.e. the one ZDNet chose not to mention at all): the ability for users to turn off Microsoft's data access. This is especially noteworthy in today's context, since Windows 10 Home users currently can't do this. At all. Does this mean that the ability to turn off Telemetry and Cortana, and have Windows Update respect those decisions and leave the shit turned off, will be coming to Windows 10 in the near future? Because it's sure as fuck not in there now.

This is the very heart of consumers' current lack of trust where Microsoft is concerned. Nadella's team have been harvesting users' data, disregarding and resetting users' privacy settings, and forcing Cortana (and Bing!) down users' throats for months now, and now Nadella has the shitting nerve to claim that transparency and the ability to turn off data access are now "pillars" of all the Microsoft does? Seriously?

Even compliance with regulations is only something that Microsoft is doing belatedly and grudgingly, after being on the receiving end of regulatory action -- it's not something they did proactively, on principle.

When I read that quote, I was so nonplussed that I didn't really know how to respond, beyond "Fuck you, Microsoft." That's still where I am with this. 

Fuck you, Microsoft, and fuck you, Satya Nadella. After this past year, you don't get to claim that your compliance with regulations is some sort of principled stance you're taking for the sake of Windows openness as a platform, especially when everything else about Windows 10 is aimed directly at a monopolistic, walled garden, iOS App Store experience, with you as the corrupt gate-keepers, creaming your percentage off the top of every software sale to every Windows 10 user from this point forward.

Did I mention that I'm rooting for Microsoft to fail at that? Because I am. Even if I hadn't been before, I definitely would have been today, after reading about the latest bullshit to come out the mouth of Satya Nadella on the subject.

#FuckYouMicrosoft #FuckYouSatyaNadella #MonopolisticBullshit #ThatsNotWhatOpenMeans #Unreal

What to do when you hate Windows 10

I'm seeing more and more stories like this one lately, from PC World:

I usually start this column with “so and so needed something done to their PC,” but if I were to include the names of all the people who have written me about how unhappy they are with their Windows 10 “upgrade” the file would be so large the server that hosts this page would need a new hard drive. I’ve been inundated with unhappy Windows 10 users for the past two months, and my heart goes out to these folks. A lot of them were upgraded unsuspectingly, and Microsoft deserves a ton of scorn for its malware-like Windows 10 upgrade tactics. That said, now that you have Windows 10 on your PC and you’re not happy, here’s what you can do about it.

Their list of things you can do pretty short: 1) keep it but make changes, 2) nuke it and install a different OS, and 3) restore from factory OS partition (for PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.). #4 on their list is literally something you can't do:

4. Isn’t there an easier way to go back to my old OS?

Not anymore, there isn’t. There was a period during the “free upgrade” era when Microsoft allowed people to try Windows 10 for 31 days and go back if they were unhappy, but that window has closed. So for now you’re stuck with it.

Profoundly unhelpful. It took only two comments for one of their readers to chime in with some (potentially) more useful advice:

max999
"Microsoft deserves a ton of scorn for its malware-like Windows 10 upgrade tactics"

You left out:
5. Look into joining the huge lawsuit coming against Microsoft for these forced upgrades to Windows 10.

This isn't an outlier, of course. The headlines have been slowly but surely filling up with variations on this theme for a while now.

The EFF investigated Microsoft's GWX tactics after all... and were not not amused

I'd stopped thinking that the Change.org petition of a couple of months back would ever come to anything, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation was apparently just taking their time:

Microsoft had an ambitious goal with the launch of Windows 10: a billion devices running the software by the end of 2018. In its quest to reach that goal, the company aggressively pushed Windows 10 on its users and went so far as to offer free upgrades for a whole year. However, the company’s strategy for user adoption has trampled on essential aspects of modern computing: user choice and privacy. We think that’s wrong.

You don’t need to search long to come across stories of people who are horrified and amazed at just how far Microsoft has gone in order to increase Windows 10’s install base. Sure, there is some misinformation and hyperbole, but there are also some real concerns that current and future users of Windows 10 should be aware of. As the company is currently rolling out its “Anniversary Update” to Windows 10, we think it’s an appropriate time to focus on and examine the company’s strategy behind deploying Windows 10.

The EFF goes on to take Microsoft to task for disregarding user choice:

Time after time, with each update, Microsoft chose to employ questionable tactics to cause users to download a piece of software that many didn’t want. What users actually wanted didn’t seem to matter. In an extreme case, members of a wildlife conservation group in the African jungle felt that the automatic download of Windows 10 on a limited bandwidth connection could have endangered their lives if a forced upgrade had begun during a mission.

And also for disregarding users' privacy:

The trouble with Windows 10 doesn’t end with forcing users to download the operating system. By default, Windows 10 sends an unprecedented amount of usage data back to Microsoft, and the company claims most of it is to “personalize” the software by feeding it to the OS assistant called Cortana. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of data sent back: location data, text input, voice input, touch input, webpages you visit, and telemetry data regarding your general usage of your computer, including which programs you run and for how long.

While we understand that many users find features like Cortana useful, and that such features would be difficult (though not necessarily impossible) to implement in a way that doesn’t send data back to the cloud, the fact remains that many users would much prefer to opt out of these features in exchange for maintaining their privacy.

And while users can opt-out of some of these settings, it is not a guarantee that your computer will stop talking to Microsoft’s servers. A significant issue is the telemetry data the company receives. While Microsoft insists that it aggregates and anonymizes this data, it hasn’t explained just how it does so. Microsoft also won’t say how long this data is retained, instead providing only general timeframes. Worse yet, unless you’re an enterprise user, no matter what, you have to share at least some of this telemetry data with Microsoft and there’s no way to opt-out of it.

So far, so good, and pretty much in line with every criticism I've seen of Microsoft's behaviour, both during the GWX campaign and continuing with the Anniversary Update -- and, presumably, beyond.

The EFF doesn't stop with criticism, though -- they also have to recommendations for Microsoft, as to how they can repair some of the damage:

Microsoft should come clean with its user community. The company needs to acknowledge its missteps and offer real, meaningful opt-outs to the users who want them, preferably in a single unified screen. It also needs to be straightforward in separating security updates from operating system upgrades going forward, and not try to bypass user choice and privacy expectations.

Otherwise it will face backlash in the form of individual lawsuits, state attorney general investigations, and government investigations.

We at EFF have heard from many users who have asked us to take action, and we urge Microsoft to listen to these concerns and incorporate this feedback into the next release of its operating system. Otherwise, Microsoft may find that it has inadvertently discovered just how far it can push its users before they abandon a once-trusted company for a better, more privacy-protective solution.

Did I mention that Linux's market share has been rising slowly but steadily since April? I think some of those users have already decided to abandon Redmond's ship. It just remains to be seen how much their arrogance costs them -- both in terms of regulatory action and lawsuits, and also in negative publicity. So far, only WinBeta have picked up this story, at least that I've seen; it'll be interesting to see if anyone else still thinks that this is worth reporting.

UPDATE:
It appears that this story definitely does have some legs, with coverage on Trusted Reviews, Telepresence Options, ZDNet, Redmond Magazine, Windows IT Pro, MS Power User, techradar, and Digital Trends. Yes. the GWX PR damage continues. Good job Microsoft. Well done, you.

The end is nigh...

If you haven't switched to Windows 10 yet, you're almost out of time, and Microsoft will finally stop asking.

From ZDNet:

Microsoft's year-long offer to Windows 7 and 8.X PC and tablet users to get Windows 10 as a free update ends today, July 29, as Microsoft reconfirmed it would back in May this year.

What else ends today? Microsoft's aggressive campaign to get those users to update to Windows 10 via its "Get Windows 10" app and prompts.

I've been working to track down some more specifics as to what will happen after today, regarding GWX and automatic installs of the Windows 10 November Update (1511). Microsoft has been very (I'd say, overly) pushy about trying to get users to take the free update -- so pushy that there are two more suits against the company over this that are seeking class-action status, as reported by The Seattle Times.

Here are some of my questions and Microsoft answers (provided via a spokesperson) about the end of the GWX campaign.

[...]

Q: Will MS still be marking Windows 10 as a recommended update on July 30 to those with Auto Updates turned on? Or will this no longer be the case?

A: The free upgrade offer ends at 11:59 p.m. UTC-10 on July 29, 2016. As such, it will no longer be available as a recommended update through Windows Update. (MJF note: This is the first time Microsoft officials have said this. I've been asking for the past couple of months and they declined to comment.)

Q: Microsoft officials said it will take a while for all the Get Windows 10 prompts to stop showing up. If people running Win 7/8.X see the GWX prompt starting July 30 and click on it, what happens? Will they go to a site suggesting they buy the update?

A: On July 29th the notifications will end. The Get Windows 10 (GWX) application will advise that the free upgrade offer has ended. In time, we will remove the application.

Thank God.

Cortana not included in latest Windows 10 education update

Considering how hard Microsoft is pushing Cortana in the Anniversary Update, along with the Bing search service that it's married to (no Google for you), I found it rather interesting that they'd have versions of Windows 10 that don't include Cortana at all, but apparently that's exactly what they've done.

From PCR:

Microsoft has announced two new versions of Windows, specifically catering to schools.

The two new versions of the OS – Windows 10 Pro Education and Windows 10 Education – “provide education-specific default settings for the evolving landscape in K-12 education IT environments."

Most interestingly from the list of omissions from both versions is the removal of Cortana. The Microsoft Store and other productivity tips will not appear either.

Cortana, one of Microsoft's biggest selling points since its introduction in 2014, being left out of this latest update to Windows for education can be seen as an admission that the service is, as many have claimed, overly invasive.

[...]

Anybody who purchased Windows 10 Pro under an Academic Licence will see the upgrade happen automatically. This means that education users will lose the features specified by Microsoft, regardless of if they want them or not.

With this upgrade, Microsoft are announcing that it believes the most secure and education-friendly versions of Windows omits both Cortana and its own Windows help features. Some users with other licences might like to see this trend follow suit across future Windows 10 updates.

With CNIL waiting to impose sanctions on Microsoft over the invasiveness of Windows 10's data collection, I find it slightly surprising that Redmond are (a) forcing consumers to keep Cortana active, and married to Win10's built-in search functionality, while also (b) tacitly admitting that Cortana really is invasive enough that they didn't think forcing it on schools would be defensible. I have a feeling that might make things awkward for them in the coming months, as they try to find some way to convince CNIL to let them keep pursuing all of their anti-competitive and anti-consumer (but profitable!) initiatives.

Also: Yes, this is a forced update.... that will remove functionality from the OS for some users. Yay?

Tim Sweeney still isn't a fan of the Universal Windows Platform

From Gadgets 360, via Slashdot:

A few months ago, Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, the studio behind the Gears of War and Unreal franchises, was in the news for criticising Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

[...]

Now Sweeney alleges that Microsoft plans to make Steam - the world's largest PC gaming platform, "progressively worse and more broken."

"Slowly, over the next five years, they will force-patch Windows 10 to make Steam progressively worse and more broken. They'll never completely break it, but will continue to break it until, in five years, people are so fed up that Steam is buggy that the Windows Store seem like an ideal alternative. That's exactly what they did to their previous competitors in other areas. Now they're doing it to Steam. It's only just starting to become visible. Microsoft might not be competent enough to succeed with their plan but they are certainly trying," Sweeney said in an interview with Edge Magazine (via NeoGAF).

[...]

"If they can succeed in doing that then it's a small leap to forcing all apps and games to be distributed through the Windows store. Once we reach that point, the PC has become a closed platform. It won't be that one day they flip a switch that will break your Steam library - what they're trying to do is a series of sneaky manoeuvres. They make it more and more inconvenient to use the old apps, and, simultaneously, they try to become the only source for the new ones," he claims.

Early on in the interview he says that Microsoft has been "able to [start] this via some sneaky PR moves. They make a bunch of statements that sound vaguely like they're promising openness but really they're not promising anything of the sort."

Considering that Microsoft are desperate not to piss off Steam PC gamers, I'm not sure that I entirely buy this line of argument, but it's certainly possible, and Microsoft haven't exactly done anything in the last year to earn the benefit of the doubt from consumers. It'll be interesting to see:

1. if Microsoft take time to respond to Sweeney this time around, the way they did last time, especially since he's not backing down on the rhetoric at all;
2. if the possibility that any such move would bring down the wrath of regulators in the US, the EU, and elsewhere has any impact here, especially since CNIL's recent actions have ensured that Microsoft pay a lot more attention to this possibility; and
3. if Valve do more in the coming months to push SteamOS and Steam Machine, which looked to be the core of their anti-UWP strategy but haven't been very actively promoted since they launched the Steam Link.

Stick a PIN in this one for later. Sweeney clearly isn't backing down or going away on this issues, and sooner or later we'll find out whether he was right about Microsoft's UWP long game.

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.

Really, really bad timing

With a last-minute onslaught of PR-department fueled "last chance to upgrade for free" stories flooding the 'net, coverage of CNIL's stark warnings to Microsoft about the seriously deficient privacy package that comes with Windows 10 have been somewhat drowned out in the news cycle, so it's heartening to see that some are determined to link the two stories into the single narrative that they should be. Por ejemplo, Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

July is a huge month for Microsoft because it marks the end of free Windows 10 upgrades. But it also coincides with serious new warnings issued about the operating system…

The warnings come directly from France’s National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) which has accused Microsoft of using Windows 10 for “collecting excessive data and tracking browsing by users without their consent”.

The CNIL also claims Microsoft collects “irrelevant or excessive data”, does not have “satisfactory measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of user data”, does not abide by the European Union’s ‘Safe Habour’ rules because it stores user data outside their home country without consent and damns the company for the lack of user consent Windows 10 provides as it enables so many data tracking features by default.

[...]

The timing of the investigation couldn’t be worse for Microsoft as free Windows 10 upgrades will end on July 29th and a late surge of upgraders has been expected. Whether the findings of the CNIL will hinder this globally remains to be seen, but it certainly won’t be comforting to users still sitting on the fence.

The news also overshadows the impending launch of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, which is packed with useful upgrades, and is also timed to tempt users to migrate from Windows 7 and Windows 8 before the deadline.

The big question is now whether the actions of the French authority will trigger similar declarations from other countries. Something that would prove a public relations nightmare for Windows 10 around the world.

(Emphasis added, of course.)

It's good to see a masthead with some significant giving space to some due diligence on the intersection of these narrative threads: #upgradegate and its fallout; the desperate last push of Microsoft's GWX campaign; and the imminent Anniversary Update which is meant to dangle extra carrots in front of reticent Windows 7 hold-outs. At first blush, these may seem like unrelated stories, but they're very definitely related. Some good work by Kelly, here, to connect the dots, especially in this last week of GWX, when Microsoft would clearly love for the prevailing story to by about just really anything else.