The Slashdot summary is pure FUD. In the article itself you can see an image of the settings, with a large checkbox to enable/disable sharing with Outlook, Skype and Facebook independently and it also has a large slider above those where you can disable it entirely.
I tried it out right now. In Windows 10, when you go into Settings and then 'Network & Internet' then under the list of WiFi WAPs, just under Properties, there is 'Manage Wi-Fi settings'. When you go there, there are 2 switches:
- 1. Connect to Wi-Fi hotspots
- 2. Exchange Wi-Fi network access with my contacts
You can disable the second item. Below it, there is a description that says 'You select the Wi-Fi networks you want to share with these contacts. They get internet access if they use Wi-Fi Sense, but they don't get to see the shared passwords. You'll also get Internet access through the networks they share
Regardless, I did a couple of things. So far, I had not been using the Guest network on the router, but I renamed it, gave it another password and enabled it. Most of my toys - my tablets, phones and this PC-BSD laptop that I am using are on my main WiFi network. I've put my Windows laptop and Winbook tablet on the guest network, and disabled the WiFi network access option. From now on, any guests I have would get access to the latter SSID, but I still am not sharing the network contents on my laptop. So I now have 2 networks - one for my Windows boxes, and the main one for everything else.
FWIW, Windows 8.1 too has the option of sharing network access, and they too make all the devices on that network visible on your computer.
If only people would see what the OS actually does, instead of spreading FUD just b'cos they loathe Microsoft (which today is a shadow of its former self)