Whilst it might have been a mis-step from the Raspberry Pi Foundation to include the Microsoft GPG key and reference to Microsoft repositories without some notification, much of the reaction to this change comes into the "Conspiracy Theory" category.
The change was aimed at making it easier for programmers to download the the VS Code editor (as I understand it for use with the Raspberry Pi Pico), not at allowing Microsoft to harvest more data.
When you run an update, the Raspberry Pi checks with a number of servers to check the latest version of packages. Very few Raspberry Pi users could even name one of the existing servers. Microsoft servers have now been added to that list, and a gpg key provided to allow the easy installation of the VS Code Editor. Authoritative details from the RaspberryPi Foundation here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 0#p1813830
I do not currently have any plans to remove the reference to Microsoft in my Raspberry Pi builds, but will keep the situation under review.
Dave, G8GKQ