That's pretty specious. Your work requires you to use it. So presumably you'll only be testing on your VM instance. And if you are using at work, then use the Enterprise version, which doesn't use a Microsoft account whatsoever. And lets you control all of these privacy concerns, including telemetry.
You bitching that your job requires you to test a product against Windows in a VM is not the same as Microsoft holding you personally hostage to give up all your personal information, however you try to spin it.
We have to test against the lowest common denominator so we're not using Enterprise or VL for this nor are the machines domain members.
The privacy policy changes violate our network AUP, security policy and compliance with a number of regulations. We handle confidential financial, insurance and medical data.
That's where the catch-22 is. There is no possiblity for us to use this and remain in compliance.
Not only that, every version of windows since 8 has called home. There is a lot of traffic outgoing from our network we block from machines. And that is with a heavily locked down GPO and custom WIM deployment.
You bitching that your job requires you to test a product against Windows in a VM is not the same as Microsoft holding you personally hostage to give up all your personal information, however you try to spin it.