Re: @ AC: "It works scarily well..." @ paply
If it ain't broke don't fix it is a nice statement, but if we were to follow that Ford would only have model T's in their showrooms and sales figures would be disappointing. Often you only know its broken after it has been fixed.
As far as the privacy argument goes, I don't think Microsoft has a cat in hells chance of getting anything tangible out of the data it pulls back other than usage statistics. Certainly nothing that's going to be materially damaging to me. They just aren't that good. Google by contrast has an excellent track record of hoovering up our personal data and making use of it by slinging adds at us that might just get us to waste money on something we don't need. Sadly like most people I have never read the Google privacy statement which I suspect they change whenever they feel the commercial need.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
