I'm not worried as balance is $0 now I put my pennies under my pillow next to my 19 shotguns and several handguns, see I know a lot about banks, jk, lol
I'm going to answer this in two parts because it isn't so cut and dry. The first 1/2 is wheater or not you trust Microsoft with your information. That is completely up to you. Some people do and some people do not. It really is a personal preference. Addressing the base of the title question Possibly. The more you have built into any program or system to call out, the more of a possibility that it can be exploited. This does not guarantee that such will happen, but it does, however, raise the possible odds of something being discovered and exploited. Finally, coming full circle... Even if nothing is ever found within Windows itself to exploit (historically every Windows has been exploitable), the data you shared voluntarily or involuntarily is going to be somewhere on a remote server someplace. As opposed to only on your computer and that too raises the risk of exploitation. Which brings back the question (full circle) on how much do you trust Microsoft?
So would you say the safest way to get torrents from the site we all know about is to set the computer up for linux, well that's if Azureus would work with it?
Thanks and know it's going off topic but one last question:- considering spying real or fiction or over hyped, is there any point in having another OS (e.g. Ubantu) on another drive (on the same computer) when the other drives have win 7 or win 10?
There is a point using linux (or freebsd, openbsd....) as the os connected to the internet, and windows as guest, letting the latter completely isolated from the internet (host only networking) or letting it to connect trough a fully monitored path, using the guest firewall or even better a proxy.