A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back
It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a new AI tool designed to remember everything you do on Windows. The feature that we never asked and never wanted it.
Microsoft, has done a lot to degrade the Windows user experience over the last few years. Everything from obtrusive advertisements to full-screen popups, ignoring app defaults, forcing a Microsoft Account, and more have eroded the trust relationship between Windows users and Microsoft.
It's no surprise that users are already assuming that Microsoft will eventually end up collecting that data and using it to shape advertisements for you. That really would be a huge invasion of privacy, and people fully expect Microsoft to do it, and it's those bad Windows practices that have led people to this conclusion.
I just read they decided to default it to off. They should remove it entirely imo, but with this move, it costs IT departments $0 and 0 hours of their time to worry about.
I think business + government + education usage is more important for them than personal, and as long as this costs them nothing, I doubt it makes a dent in anyone's plans. Could have been an apocalypse if defaulted to on though.
From what I've seen they will be asking yes or no upon setup with no default.
If it’s anything like some of the other features they’ve crammed in they will ask that question over and over and over and over again until you choose the answer they want.
“Not now”