Windows 8 Applications and Privacy in the age of Surveillance

[mozzarz]

Here I am with a new Windows 8.1 'puter perusing the Windows Store for interesting apps to download. I can't help but to notice that each of them includes a warning which implies your computer might be scanned for private data ("this app has permission to use some features of your computer which might affect your privacy") and further that control of your computer ("your internet connection may be used") may be handed off to another. What is all this talk anyway? Are we to think that as a price for developing software which will be touted as being "free" we will be paying after all but in a different coin (data mining or droning)?

Are these sorts of statements (lawyer talk for sure) explained anywhere? Does anyone know exactly why they are present? Does anyone on this forum agree that some level of concern would be appropriate here? Finally are we to just shrug off these really scary bits saying "oh well, it's just the way it is"?

Opinions welcome.

 

[davehc]

Any program which you install, beit from the store or web, now or earlier, may scan your private data for setup info, or, in future use, to plant cookies. If you are going to download it, then, naturally, it will use your internet connection. I think the warning is way for Microsoft to cover itself.
legality, I would imagine, is not part of the issue, mainly you could say, face saving.

 

[patcooke]

Whenever you have installed a program in the past many of them will have made similar access to resources in order to execute the design functions and serve the user's desired purposes. There is nothing new in the activities it's just that you are now being given more detailed information about things which have always happened but which were not specifically drawn to your attention.