It is a little freaky how much Windows 8 knows about you. I installed it on a fresh Laptop with no personal files or any personal information.

 

Start it up for the first time and low and behold, My Photo's were in there, it new exactly were I was on the map, Emails loaded up, 300+ of my friends contacts were in there, documents loaded up from my SkyDrive. etc etc etc.

 

I have no problem with it just makes you think how much stuff we are putting out on the internet. I am used to a fresh install of Windows 7 or older and nothing on there until I load it on there. Windows 8 just knows everything about you the moment you start it up.

 

Any other Beta Testers having similar experiences???

Did you sign in via your Microsoft account and leave location services on?

I'm not beta testing Windows 8, but when people use web mail accounts, photo sharing sites, social networking (Facebook twitter etc) and other "in the cloud" services any of it becomes visible when you log into those sites. Doesn't matter if you're running Windows 8, Widows XP or Windows 2K at one of the public library work stations. Many of those services are linked together.

 

You geographical position can be approximated by the very IP address that directs page views back to your work station. This is just as feasible for a web site if you a running Windows 98 or Linux, without any need for you to log into an online account.

Did you sign in via your Microsoft account and leave location services on?

 

Yep and that is why.....It is just impressive how quickly all that stuff loaded up. At first I was like "How do they know." Having spent week with Windows 8 now it is pretty straightforward how it all works.

 

I didn't realize MS made agreements with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn etc to make all that work. But the fact that they knew my house from my IP address was a bit of a surprise as well.

 

Mapping IP Addresses does make sense for marketing, this way your local business can pay to market in my neighbourhood instead of globally. Just didn't realize how accurate it was.