Privacy policies are of no practical, day-to-day concern unless a body - usually a governmental agency - compels the vendor to identify and release your data. In the end, only an extremely small number of vendors will refuse to release your data if compelled to do so - regardless of their stated privacy policies.
Abuse of collected personal data by a soft vendor is a rarity - but still possible.
If complete privacy is a concern, then you should not use any computer - even Linux with a hardened distro such as Tails.
Worrying about privacy is an exercise in futility. Therefore, all things being equal, if one vendor has a better privacy policy than another vendor, it more often than not, still comes down to a matter of other much more important factors:
The primary factors in selecting softs are:
1. Do they work properly and reliably on your specific system ?
2. Are they compatible with other softs installed on your system ?
and finally...
3. Do they meet your needs and expectations (assuming your expectations are realistic) ?
A vendor's privacy policy is rarely the deciding factor - but it should be evaluated and figure into the selection process. In other words, a vendor's privacy policy is a secondary factor - since the OS (Windows) itself is collecting user data more extensively than any security soft.
I consider a vendor's privacy policy to the extent that they will share my data with a 3rd party that will result in unsolicited emails. Such a thing happens very rarely in my experience.
When considering Qihoo, it basically comes down to this question:
"Do you trust the Chinese government ?"
because the real potential issue is not Qihoo, but the government under which Qihoo operates.
My view is that you cannot trust any government where any IT matter is concerned.
Uhmm i do agree with you for the most part, but:
Abuse of collected personal data by a soft vendor is a rarity - but still possible.
Is incorrect most companies will use your data and have your data used by others, the truth about a privacy agreement and a EULA is that they go hand in hand. Now why am i saying this? Such agreements are written to avoid the company from being sued and avoid them being liable to claims because under certain conditions outlined by local & international law the EULA will overrule whatever is written in the privacy policy like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Intel clearly mastered into art.
On top of that most privacy policies are technically correct and sound but in the real-world not enforceable this applies both for the end user and the company itself.
As has been shown in the latest privacy leaks and scandals.
If complete privacy is a concern, then you should not use any computer - even Linux with a hardened distro such as Tails.
So what are you saying? just click i do agree and forget about privacy? Imagine someone comes into your home and start watching naked pictures of your wife (As a example) so this is ok? Obviously not and i am sure you will teach the person a lesson or 2 3 4 5 6 KO... right?
Yet on your smartphone is normal that apps that have nothing to do with pictures and such are scanning you photo album and all these things.
The fact is privacy is enforceable but it requires you to say NO to the new hype of the moment, but no most people are inspired on things written and recommend by facebook, instagram and all these social media platforms.
People are like sheep they like the masses which means that if you hype it just enough it becomes a hype and a new standard.
You as the end user give the companies the ability to get away with the things they are doing, since they set the terms and you sheeps accept them without even really reading what you just accepted to.
But if people would say NO to the new Google privacy and stop buying and using their products then see how fast the privacy and other things change. But as long NONE really makes a fuzz then why would for example google drop their ways of gathering data.
A simple example is that Google use to abuse data and sell it to third parties even tho they claim not to do that, the EU court started a investigation and Google could be fined up to 50 Billion Euro and guess what? the entire data sharing protocol got changed in a matter of months because they knew they where wrong.
Same thing happened with windows 8 the true fall was the industry NOT accepting the abilities MS would have over you as end user.
Hence why Windows 10 Enterprise version is more or less free of tracking, yet early versions already proved to be flawed... and again the industry sticks with Windows XP or 7 no matter how much MS pushes them, and viola... the whole windows 10 series gets a update... i wonder why that is.
That is the same with you as the home user, don't fall for hypes, get the software you need to do the stuff you want to do, but stay away from software that you want to have because its a new hype.
Choose ur software carefully and if in doubt... don't use it. If enough people do that you will see a much more friendly internet.
Not entirely accurate what i wrote here but its the basics in a nutshell.
Cheers
