Flutterby™! : Windows 10 privacy again

Even when told not to, Windows 10 just can’t stop talking to Microsoft.

We've asked Microsoft if there is any way to disable this additional communication or information about what its purpose is. We were told "As part of delivering Windows 10 as a service, updates may be delivered to provide ongoing new features to Bing search, such as new visual layouts, styles and search code. No query or search usage data is sent to Microsoft, in accordance with the customer's chosen privacy settings. This also applies to searching offline for items such as apps, files and settings on the device." This is consistent with what we saw (there is no query or search data transmitted), but also likely to run counter to most people's expectations; if Web searching and Cortana are disabled, we suspect that the inference that most people would make is that searching the Start menu wouldn't hit the Internet at all. But it does. The traffic could be innocuous, but the inclusion of a machine ID gives it a suspicious appearance.