14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has introduced new options for the Office productivity suite in order to provide users with more control over the data they send to the company as part of telemetry services.
The most recent Office Insider update comes with two options, namely Required Diagnostic Data and Optional Diagnostic Data.
As per German site WinFuture, the first option only concerns critical information that Microsoft needs to improve Office, while the latter includes additional details about crashes and other feedback the user might send to the software giant, again with the purpose of refining the productivity suite.
Users can choose between the two on the first run, though there’s a chance additional controls would be added in the settings screen too.
Right now, the new telemetry settings are only available for users in the Office Insider program, but there’s no doubt they would soon be brought to all Office users regardless of the platform.
Windows 10 privacy improvements
The approach reminds of Microsoft’s privacy improvements on Windows 10, as the desktop operating system also comes with telemetry options to let users control the amount of data that the software giant collects from their devices.
Microsoft has come under fire in several countries across the world for not putting users in control of the data they send to its servers, and by the looks of things, the company now wants to expand the original Windows 10 privacy improvements to other products as well, including here Microsoft Office.
Microsoft hasn’t officially announced these changes, but there’s a high chance the company would provide a thorough description when they become available for all Office users. No ETA is known at this point, but features available for insiders typically needs only a few weeks or a couple of months before going live in the stable build of the productivity suite.