Which, Duane, is why people shouldn't use corporate products for personal things.  The only stuff that ever comes into and goes out of my Linux installation, is what I say so, and every user needs that level of control.

That last comment from Baggins was so hilarious it was almost pitiful.  For crying out loud, if Microsoft really wants to put something onto a computer running Microsoft Windows, believe me, they can, and they can do that whether or not you have the option switched on or you decide to allow it.  All they have to do is claim it was a bug that allowed it to happen, and I'm guessing when the time comes they want to sell everyones data, that's the excuse they'll use, that the data wasn't sold, it was stolen.

Perhaps it would be wise to check-over that EULA of Microsoft's and read it for what it actually is (a licence for them to do as they wish).

I doubt those poor Apple useds asked Apple to shove a complimentary copy of U2 (or whatever it was) onto their iThing, but they did.  And I very much doubt those Amazon Kindle useds thought Amazon could delete books from their devices without permission, but they did regardless of the settings imposed.  FFS, if you use a commercial OS, it means it was designed by them for their benefit and profit, not yours - you're not a user of the product - you are the product.  The only reason these corporate fucks can do this is because you have their products installed on your system, and for as long as it remains there, your system might as well be their system, they have more control over it than you do.

Removing that crap from your system and moving over to a secure, publicly audited OS, would obviously be a very wise move.  There are ample warnings out there about what is going on and what is going to happen if you continue to use that stuff, and the funny thing is, you shouldn't need others to point these things out, it should be obvious.  None of us like all this crap, but it is what it is so you have got to protect yourself from it.

Every issue you have with Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft products, exists because you're using products created by those corporate assholes :-D