how is "a Microsoft product sends data to a Microsoft API for a specific feature" a surprising thing, although this seems to malfunction and send data even though it shouldn't?
If I sold you a digital camera, would you be surprised if I was uploading every picture you took to my servers? (Without telling you, of course.) Your blasé reaction is rather worrying.
At this point no. Virtually every IoT device requires upload to the manufacturer’s server to get even basic functionality, which of course breaks when the server goes offline. The privacy policies when they exist virtually never promise end-to-end encryption (a promise I wouldn’t trust anyway as corners are cut and there are unlikely to be security audits), and often imply sales of data to partners.
In this age of AI scraping every shred of data I suspect anything connected to the internet will be compromised in a back room deals, through lack of security, or through sub-contractors sharing what they can get their hands on.
I think reactions to this are more along the lines of horrified, but it is our accepted trade off in the name of cheap products.
I don't like this analogy for a number of reasons beginning with the difference between a free software that I know is internet connected and a purchased device that doesn't even need access to the internet.
Let me ask this: Would you be surprised to learn that Google Chrome sends data to Google when you enter something in the task bar to give you auto complete predictions? I wouldn't. The same is also true for Microsoft Edge sending data to Microsoft Bing to enable a feature of the Webbrowser.
