I would think and hope that, but evidence tends to point to the contrary.

A quick search brings up multiple articles including:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/nsa-finally-admits-to-spying-on-americans-by-purchasing-sensitive-data/

Guess those EULAS we all agreed to but never read had some sneaky language about what they can do with the data.

If I had to guess, obtaining the data by force may require a court order or legal process.

Buying data that someone else is willingly selling bypasses those steps.

I don’t remember it being particularly difficult, I’m a bit of a linux newb myself, but I’d be lying if I said I remember which steps I took off the top of my head.

My spouse has a laptop from Asus with VERY similar Specs (but an RTX 3050ti instead of a 3060) and so far Linux Mint has been a pretty trouble -free experience with ONE condition:

I set it to use the dedicated nvidia gpu 24/7 as opposed to the integrated AMD gpu. I forgot what exactly was happening but if memory serves it was disrupting something, I think recovering from closing the lid?

After doing that we’ve never had an issue again. They mostly use at their desk plugged in, sp the power usage isn’t much a concern.

Hope this helps!

Hispanic here, I grew up using “gringo” specifically for people from the U.S. despite skin tone.

Canadians are “Canadiense”, English are “Ingles” but United States? “Estadounidense”? It’s sort of like saying “United Statian” but arguably more “correct/proper”

Gringo is just much faster/easier to say.

That being said this can vary a little from one Latin-American country to another.