Runkeeper is tracking you in the background and selling the info to advertisers

Im sorry but like Oliver, I dont agree with you either. I do agree that there is privacy-destroying apps available for Linux- a good example is Google Chrome. Google learns all sorts of things about its users through Chrome unless you lock it down. Even then, it is debatable if you can totally protect yourself. Firefox though not as secure from attack is easier to make more private, and Mozilla is a much better company for user rights than Google.

Oliver is also wrong that no Linux distro violates privacy- Ubuntu and its amazon crap. That is the only example I can think of though.

All that aside, there is a fundamental difference between Windows and Linux: Linux is built with a focus on open code, and a focus on the OS doing what the user wants; Windows is built on closed code and on doing what Microsoft and other companies want. Microsoft- like most other software companies today no doubt- is moving towards the OS being the property of digital property owners and of Microsoft; you use the OS they own, and they can do whatever they want on it. The modern approach for Mo' Money (tm) is to slowly usurp rights so the frog doesnt jump from the boiling water. Microsoft is doing this with all its products, as is Google, as is Apple.

Linux is- for better or worse- stuck in a very different ideology. It is about the people who use it, and from the ground up. The very mindset of its desktop user base (not corporate/server where it has all the good stuff and dominates) has prevented proprietary software from ever being viable on the platform, but has at the same time prevented it from becoming a corporate cesspool. Linux has problems- systemd becoming an OS within an OS, pulseaudio and the entire linux audio stack sucks compared to windows, X sucks, wayland is taking way too long to be usefully implemented, etc- but they do not relate to privacy. EDIT** X and wayland do relate to security however, as X is usually the biggest security risk on a Linux system.

From a technical standpoint, Windows is a nightmare with DNS leaks, it defaults to "**** your privacy," its not transparent, and Windows 10 itself is a fundamental shift towards this new "we own the OS, not the users" paradigm. Linux is much easier to control what comes in and goes out (iptables is the ****), it has a good distribution model for its updates and software (central repos), its userbase cares about user rights (where windows has spokesmen), and its central design (with discretionary access control) is inherently more resistant to malware (not to mention MAC, pax, grsecurity). Linux simply does privacy and user rights BETTER than commercial options. This is not misinformation.

Before Im flagged for it being off-topic, its not: Runkeeper is the direction of ALL commercial software now, which includes windows 10. The above shows the fundamental difference between commercial and OSS- and its a discussion that is damn scary.