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Sometime ago I posted this on another thread, but the question now is:
Can MS relate each downloaded Codec with the AppStore / Win Account to ID the user?
Can this be used to ID media both made or played by that Codec? I suppose that Codec works only for playback, but it can phone home or leave crumbs for other telemetry tools.

(May 19, 2019, 10:57 am)dueda Wrote: [ -> ]
Image search got this one from Reddit. 

I ask because it's a weird move from MS; the CoDec means nothing to MS (it's a paltry buck, I know thousands of users will pay, but it's peanuts anyway) AND it was supposed to be supplied by OEMs, but MS demanded it was downloaded from their App Store (with the user Account login), SO I smell ID-ing and possibly large scale tracking.

Or is my hat too tight?

Quote:Can MS relate each downloaded Codec with the AppStore / Win Account to ID the user?

If I understood your concern correctly I am fairly sure MS stores in their cloud your MS Store installation history linked to your MS account, providing you're signed in.

Quote:Can this be used to ID media both made or played by that Codec?

Assuming it's Windows environment the codec likely comes as a DLL file which contains code used to parse the afferent data streams. Thus the codec library itself doesn't spy on you, but the software used to control the video (aka the video player) might have done it ever since. It's proprietary software, I don't know, I can't conclude anything.

I avoid this crap by using the open source VLC which comes packed up with almost (if not all) codecs out there.

Windows has a long story of keeping tabs on users' activities, "recent played" being a specific example; I'm supposing the player, the OS itself (file access routines), and maybe the codec, all may have a part in it.
But then, even if I use third-party player, image viewer, codecs and other tools, Windows would still track me? I guess privacy tools would be the only way out of it, specially with Win10.