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On the other hand, Microsoft has a majority-share browser, along with a search engine, advertising business etc. Are they doing all of this today?



> Are they doing all of this today?

No. Because they don't really care. They're not trying to understand your behavior to display ads you're more likely to click on. Google? it's their core business.


Don't forget they have an OS as well, even if they were doing it today, how could we know? Who knows if they are doing it covertly under the guise of windows updates.

Disclaimer: I don't actually believe they do.


A savvy network admin with Ethereal could find out...


I would have assumed MS would use some encryption on the data they send, which would mean that nobody could ever know except Microsoft. That said, I don't know that any sort of encryption is used for Windows Updates. But they could do it...


Traffic analysis would let you know what kind of data is being sent, even without being able to decrypt the actual data.




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