From Wikipedia

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In software, telemetry is used to gather data on the use and performance of applications and application components, e.g. how often certain features are used, measurements of start-up time and processing time, hardware, application crashes, and general usage statistics and/or user behavior. In some cases, very detailed data is reported like individual window metrics, counts of used features, and individual function timings.

This kind of telemetry can be essential to software developers to receive data from a wide variety of endpoints that can't possibly all be tested in-house, as well as getting data on the popularity of certain features and whether they should be given priority or be considered for removal. Due to concerns about privacy since software telemetry can easily be used to profile users, telemetry in user software is often user choice, commonly presented as an opt-in feature (requiring explicit user action to enable it) or user choice during the software installation process.

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In the USA telemetry most often is an OPT OUT feature, an Egregious violation of the EU mandate that such features be disabled until the user enables the feature. Seems the EU has a better grip on citizen privacy than the 'land of the free.'

As FB and Cambridge demonstrated, telemetry is a very powerful tool for predicting when one is at a persuasion point and identifies the individual to receive whatever messages need to achieve the outcome wanted. The individual thinks it is research, but the reality is, they are being persuaded by those with other intentions.

It appears by the responses that in the USA and the AR community, this is no big deal, until someones plans are thwarted and the loser cries, "FOUL!"