The purpose of spying is to gain advantage over e.g enemies. There is no good faith.
The purpose of telemetry is to collect some data about how my product is used in order to make it better.
Also telemetry is documented, so it is no secret, but it is just that users dont give a shit. Meanwhile spy tries to be undisclosed as long as possible.
And good faith and intent is not a sufficient guard.
Intent makes a difference, but it's not magic. It only makes a meaningful difference if it changes what data gets collected and stored. The data gets collected either way. Data breeches happen, and intent isn't stable (or even fully coherent in companies. You might trust them now, but you probably shouldn't trust them a few years down the line. Look at how different google of today acts than the google of 2000.
For the case in point, that data includes "The categories of websites you visit, but not the URL itself, Includes universal plug and play devices and devices that broadcast information to your computer on a local area network: for example, smart TV model and vendor information, and video streaming devices.", so far more than "data about how my product is used in order to make it better". That's some other purpose. We already have evident of bad intent. Bad faith is not at all uncommon with large companies. You do remember the sony rootkit[0], right?
And even with good intent it's easy to overcollect data, because of the fear of missing out on something useful. It really could be useful be useful to see if crashes correlate with other running software, various registry settings, etc, but collecting that absolutely should be considered way beyond the line. (That rootkit was packed with telemetry too, collecting e-mail addresses and listening habits)
Telemetry we _know about_ tends to be documented, however there's an unknown amount of sampling bias. Further, secrecy is not binary, things can be poorly disclosed. I'd argue they often are, with documents that are neither obviously visible nor transparent about what is collected. This is in no way surprising. Disclosure doesn't directly help any bottom line, it just guards against possible reputation and legal damage if it is discovered.
As you say, users mostly don't care. We live in an age of mass surveillance and have raised generations who think it normal.
The purpose of spying is to gain advantage over e.g enemies. There is no good faith.
The purpose of telemetry is to collect some data about how my product is used in order to make it better.
Also telemetry is documented, so it is no secret, but it is just that users dont give a shit. Meanwhile spy tries to be undisclosed as long as possible.
Intention makes difference