There’s a saying you’ll hear in certain tech circles: There is no cloud, just other people’s computers.

The cloud is, of course, the vast collection of distant databanks we use to back up our vacation photos, search the Web, make online purchases, find the quickest route home and do pretty much everything else. It is owned by unaccountable corporations, is regularly accessed by police and intelligence agencies and creates a convenient gold mine of credit card numbers, nude photos and other private data for malicious hackers to steal.

And increasingly, using it is no longer optional.

With the July release of its Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft has made the border between using your computer and using other peoples’ computers blurrier than ever before. Privacy advocates are warning about a host of default settings that make automatic sharing of data the new normal — from your voice and typing patterns to unique machine IDs that help advertisers identify, track and target you with personalized ads, even on your device’s lock screen. Basically, all the privacy worries of your smartphone and Web browser are now a regular part of a major desktop operating system.

This isn’t really a surprise. Microsoft’s previous iteration, Windows 8, laid the groundwork for a fully cloud-integrated operating system that phones home an alarming amount of user information and activity. Windows isn’t alone either: By default, users of Mac OSX and Ubuntu Linux unwittingly transmit local search terms to their respective companies as well as to third parties. Unless these settings are changed (learn how for Mac and for Ubuntu), these companies analyze everything users type into the search box to find a file or app on their hard drives, along with unique IDs and location data.

Windows 10 suggests that this trend is here to stay. Take Cortana, the operating system’s personal digital assistant, similar to Apple’s Siri. Cortana uses a feature called Getting to Know You — enabled by default — which allows Windows to automatically record, analyze and share your speech and typing patterns, as well as your location, contacts, calendars and more. We’re told this is for our own good because these kinds of apps, Siri and Google Now included, need our personal data in order to be useful. When the data are sent to Microsoft (or Apple or Google, plus any law enforcement agency or third party that the companies’ arcane terms of service agreements allow) they’re used to improve the algorithm that responds to our queries. There’s no way around this; it’s simply how the app was designed to work.

It’s the ultimatum that mainstream technology companies keep offering us: Either we give up our privacy to use the latest apps and features or we opt out and miss out. Accept the defaults or get left in the dust. Conform or die.

Even when people choose the former, in reality, they’re hardly ever consciously choosing anything. Defaults are powerful decisions that software companies make for us, and it’s always easier for users to do nothing — especially when they’re told it’s for their benefit. Studies have consistently shown that users rarely change their default settings, and companies that design software know it.