People are already being tracked in lots of ways they don't know about. The difference with Cakewalk is they're saying they plan to introduce analytics, and provide a way to turn it off. I don't have a problem with that. I
do have a problem with a friend asking me to pick up some dog food because they're sick, so I look for the nearest Petco and from that day on, Chrome thinks I want dog sweaters, leashes, and chewy treats.
I can see how this relates to the updates. Suppose if after the Start Screen had been introduced, 80% of the feedback showed that people tried it and then turned it off. Conversely, if every one uses patch points, that indicates the type of feature people want. But I assume some of the most useful data would be pinpointing the source of crashes...if the analytics are done right, not only would Cakewalk have the crash dump, they would know exactly what led up to it. I think that would make reproducing crashes
much easier.
Someone suggested this in the forums a while back, and I thought it was a good idea. As long as enough people opt in to provide meaningful data, I don't see any down side...and this from a guy who usually has location services turned off on my iPhone