Cortana, Thanks. But No Thanks. I'll Keep My Privacy to Myself

How to Turn Off Cortana: Hey, Cortana, don't invade my privacy

So many people tell me that Cortana is driving them crazy. Bing, Cortana and Microsoft Privacy Policies are all intertwined. There are a lot of entities tracking, sharing, and selling information about you, along with what you're saying and what you're looking for online.

Disable it this way:

Press the Win key to open the Start Menu.
Search for “Cortana & Search Settings” and select the option that appears.
Disable Cortana in the first toggle in the menu.
Once Cortana is disabled, you should see an option that reads “Search online and includes web results.” Disable this toggle.

Once you’ve done this, your Start Menu should only show you results for your local machine. However, major bummer, as you'll see in the Research below, The Guardian reported that Microsoft was collecting data even though the setting was off (!). Yep. So, stay away from Bing might be the best answer.