Exactly. Reaching out over the network like that is an invitation to, if not a revelation of, malfeasance of some kind. Apple intentionally chose to implement this "feature" in a suspect way, and specious comparisons of an OS and a browser [0] don't strike me as justification, or even explanation. Maybe it's just me, but I like my machine to stay as mine as possible.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28080107