I don’t hate telemetry, and words do have meanings. I wouldn’t call it a consumer attraction, however, otherwise it would make the most sense to design it as opt-in.

Telemetry isn’t malicious by nature, although it likely is in support of predatory sales practices in this case considering HP’s recent history. When opt-out, I would call it undesirable software designed to send unauthorized data from a consumer perspective.

Maybe there is a better term, but I can’t think of one. Language is flexible though, and most categorizations have defiers.

Fair point, although it feels wrong to refer to malware as a feature.