Microsoft begins selling Windows 10 telemetry data to third parties

Your title is misleading at best. This is a enterprise add-on tool for those that want to use it to detect security threats. This has nothing to do with consumer users and enterprises have the option to use this or any other security tools they chose. Or none at all which I say is a REALLY bad idea in the enterprise. This is actually a nice option for companies that don't have the resources to do this all in house.
 
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I'm glad I have the ability to use a version that allows telemetry to be set to security only. I think Microsoft going back to not collecting telemetry is as likely as Apple adding the headphone jack back.
 
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Shared, not sold. From the article:

Microsoft recently struck a deal with security firm FireEye to provide access to Windows 10 telemetry data, in exchange for having FireEye’s iSIGHT Threat Intelligence technology included in its Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection service. WDATP is an enterprise security product that helps enterprises detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks on their networks and is different from the free version of Windows Defender.

...It’s not known exactly what data Microsoft has made available to FireEye, but in a detailed TechNet article on its telemetry gathering the software giant originally said: "Microsoft may share business reports with OEMs and third party partners that include aggregated and anonymized telemetry information. Data-sharing decisions are made by an internal team including privacy, legal, and data management".

So Microsoft is sharing anonymized data with a security firm in order to improve Windows Defender. Doesn't sound horrible, to me.
 
I think it's a bit more than "sharing" since there is something of value being traded by both parties. Microsoft is giving a 3rd party everyone's telemetry data in exchange for use of one of FireEye's security products via another MS service for *enterprise*. http://investors.fireeye.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=997536

The funny thing is that virtually no home users will use WDATP, but all their telemetry data is being used without permission regardless. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us...e/windows-defender-advanced-threat-protection

Suckers!
 
Armenius said:
So Microsoft is sharing anonymized data with a security firm in order to improve Windows Defender. Doesn't sound horrible, to me.
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What's so bad about sending third party crash dumps that are defaulted to be sent by Windows 10 in event of a crash? It's anonymized so there is no unique MS identifier to tie that to you. I mean surely MS goes through all the dump files it receives and anonymizes anything that might be your name, address, social security numbers, unlocked password manager database in memory because we all know there is a simple solution to anonymizing those dumps from whatever random program users had running at the time of the crash. Yep that's right not horrible at all. :rolleyes:
 
Armenius said:
Shared, not sold. From the article:

Microsoft recently struck a deal with security firm FireEye to provide access to Windows 10 telemetry data, in exchange for having FireEye’s iSIGHT Threat Intelligence technology included in its Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection service. WDATP is an enterprise security product that helps enterprises detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks on their networks and is different from the free version of Windows Defender.

...It’s not known exactly what data Microsoft has made available to FireEye, but in a detailed TechNet article on its telemetry gathering the software giant originally said: "Microsoft may share business reports with OEMs and third party partners that include aggregated and anonymized telemetry information. Data-sharing decisions are made by an internal team including privacy, legal, and data management".

So Microsoft is sharing anonymized data with a security firm in order to improve Windows Defender. Doesn't sound horrible, to me.
Click to expand...

Except striking a deal = selling. A trade is a sale. But putting aside the semantics and what constitutes a "sale", the takeaway remains that the "Telemetry = MS internal use only" claims turned out to be bullshit just as predicted; the goalposts have moved once again.

"Just the tip"..
 
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DPI said:
Striking a deal = selling. One can jerk off debating the semantics of sharing vs selling but in this case the takeaway remains that the "Telemetry = MS internal use only" claims turned out to be bullshit as predicted, and the goalposts have moved once again, right on schedule.
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A update from the original link you posted: http://betanews.com/2016/11/24/microsoft-shares-windows-10-telemetry-data-with-third-parties/

Update: Microsoft says that the deal with FireEye doesn't involve the sharing of telemetry data. A Microsoft spokesman tells me:

The nature of the deal between Microsoft and FireEye is to license threat intelligence content from FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence. This additional layer of intelligence includes indicators and reports of past attacks collected and edited by FireEye and enhances detection capabilities of Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (WDATP). The deal does not include the sharing of Microsoft telemetry.
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Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection is an enterprise malware/threat detection tool. It's an at cost tool that's completely optional to use. The iSIGHT capabilities are integrated to enhance WDATP abilities.
 
Armenius said:
So Microsoft is sharing anonymized data with a security firm in order to improve Windows Defender. Doesn't sound horrible, to me.
Click to expand...

So if I don't use Windows Defender and it's disabled, it shouldn't collect or share anything, correct? Because I don't use Defender, and it is disabled....yet it still does collect [air quote] anonymized [/air quote] data, supposedly. But that doesn't really make any sense.
 
zero2dash said:
So if I don't use Windows Defender and it's disabled, it shouldn't collect or share anything, correct? Because I don't use Defender, and it is disabled....yet it still does collect [air quote] anonymized [/air quote] data, supposedly. But that doesn't really make any sense.
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Sssshhhhh you can't use logic here when talking about Windows 10. It's not allowed.
 
zero2dash said:
So if I don't use Windows Defender and it's disabled, it shouldn't collect or share anything, correct? Because I don't use Defender, and it is disabled....yet it still does collect [air quote] anonymized [/air quote] data, supposedly. But that doesn't really make any sense.
Click to expand...

This isn't the consumer Windows Defender that comes with Windows 10, this is an at cost enterprise malware/threat detection tool, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection. These tools by necessity collect data since the point is to be able to report and trigger alerts on potential threats. I imagine every enterprise these days has tools for this, the bank does and it's quite thorough in what it reports.

Our stuff is done on premises, I don't know what WDATP provides in that regard or if it has to share data with Microsoft like normal Windows Defender. Whatever the case this is just a tool among a number that enterprises have to option to use. And they have to use SOMETHING these days, particularly business at high risk to cyberattacks like banking.
 
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