Windows Longhorn Privacy Invasion?

I've been hearing from several different friends rumors involving major privacy invasion applications that will be placed into the official release of the Longhorn OS--application tracking and such, to track things like P2P clients, MP3s, and such, on a more grandiose scale than the hidden webpage and Outlook email storage that is found in XP. I wouldn't be surprised if MS took such a step, but obviously it's something anyone who values their privacy in their own home would be concerned about, on principle if not for having something to hide.

Since I haven't had the chance to look at the sources of my friends, and I have found little through Google, I figured Tomshardware would be the best place to get an informed, intelligent response about this.

I don't mean to rumormonger and if this post is taken in such a panicked fashion then that is completely the choice of the reader...

Derag

The biggest thing I've heard about Longhorn is that it will incorporate Digital Rights Management (DRM). This is supposedly going to be Micro$oft cooperating with the RIAA to try to prevent piracy of digital media by using things like encrypted authentication codes and proprietary codecs for media players. I have a friend that works at Micro$oft (I live in Seattle, everyone who lives here knows somebody who works there) that I'm going to ask about some of this stuff. He doesn't work on that team so I suspect he won't know much about it (not to mention he probably has a NDA that would prevent him from telling me anyway, but I can be pursuasive), but you never know.

He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it, hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart. -C.S. Lewis