Microsoft says this feature will be offered on Enterprise

Sep 29, 2015 04:31 GMT  ·  By

Windows head Terry Myerson published a lengthy blog post a few hours ago to respond to all privacy violation accusations targeting Windows 10, explaining that, despite the fact that some data is indeed collected from users' PCs, the company isn't spying on them.

While 99 percent of the blog post is about how Microsoft collects user information without actually infringing their privacy, there's one small mention where the company explains how telemetry services will be handled in the current Windows 10 SKUs.

In the “Safety and Reliability Data” section of the post, Myerson reveals the kind of data that's collected from our PCs, saying that anonymous device ID, device type, and application crash data are automatically sent to the company, but private information, such as name, email address, and account ID, is fully secure and not touched by the operating system.

Enterprise only

A few paragraphs later, Myerson goes on to say this:

“Our enterprise feature updates later this year will enable enterprise customers the option to disable this telemetry, but we strongly recommend against this.”

This means that enterprises will get full control of the data they agree to share, while consumers running Windows 10 Home or Pro will have no other option than to send it to Microsoft (unless they resort to different methods of blocking it, such as third-party apps that can disable all tracking services).

Obviously, this isn't really fair for consumers, who expect to have full control of their information and what they allow to be transferred to Microsoft, so the number of users who download and install applications that can take care of their privacy in Windows 10 could grow.

There's no timing available right now for the arrival of this Windows 10 Enterprise patch, but given the fact that it's not yet ready, there's still hope the company could change its mind and release this option for consumers too.