This is a few days old now but needs to be addressed–a lot of people were planning on staying on Windows 7 because they don’t like Windows 10’s new privacy settings, but unless you uninstall some stealthy updates, Windows 7 spies on you too.
Microsoft used to call this “scroogling,” and launched a massive PR campaign against Google, but now they’re doing exactly the things they blasted Google for doing, only they’re collecting money to do it.
So basically Microsoft is trying to have it both ways now–charge for the OS, but treat the consumer as a product. Windows 7, of course, was a paid upgrade, and Windows 10 is only free under special circumstances–businesses and OEMs still pay for it.
To make Windows 7 and 8 stop scroogling you, uninstall KB3068708,  KB3075249, and KB3080149, all of which have the word “telemetry” in their description.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
