Was reminded today that Bonzi Buddy was derided as spyware two decades ago for doing considerably less than the telemetry in virtually every modern application.
@Quinnypig "Telemetry" is such a vile misnomer for spyware.
The legitimate difference between the meanings is purely the ownership relationships. It's telemetry if you're getting data back from a remote robot/probe/spacecraft/etc. that's yours operating somewhere it has business being.
If you're getting data back from something that's not yours but somebody else's, operating in the space where they expect privacy, it's spyware.
@Quinnypig remember when people got upset about an embedded serial number in Intel CPUs? So quaint.