Exactly. Another example is applications "phoning home" (desltop applications sending information back to the server) that not that much ago was considered a se

Exactly. Another example is applications "phoning home" (desltop applications sending information back to the server) that not that much ago was considered a serious abuse. And people on forums would lambast you when you asked how to implement something like that. Now it's called telemetry and is the norm.