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Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

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Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#151

Post by tristor »

Here's a quick and dirty way to opt out for BASH and ZSH users for easy copy/pasting.

BASH:

  cat > .bashrc
  # Opt out of Homebrew analytics
  export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1
  if [[ -e "$HOME/.homebrew_analytics_user_uuid" ]]; then
    rm -f "$HOME/.homebrew_analytics_user_uuid"
  fi
  EOF
ZSH:

  cat > .zshrc
  # Opt out of Homebrew analytics
  export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1
  if [[ -e "$HOME/.homebrew_analytics_user_uuid" ]]; then
    rm -f "$HOME/.homebrew_analytics_user_uuid"
  fi
  EOF
Cheers.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#154

Post by falcolas »

derefr wrote: post #149
mikevm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably true, but then no one would opt-in.

Or, even worse, there'd be a selection effect where the distribution of people who opt in is skewed from the total distribution of Homebrew users, ruining the dataset for any analysis one might want to do to it. There's a reason that Nielson Ratings collection isn't opt-in.

Funny, it's been quite a few years, but I remember being a Nielson family for a few months, and it was absolutely opt-in. We had to fill out a little booklet with what we were watching and data about ourselves.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#155

Post by ant6n »

Matt3o12_ wrote: post #132
quotha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is software, they can just ask instead!

Which might break some scripts that expect home brew not to require user input. The right way to do it would be to ask if a terminal was available but in reality, scripts are not careful enough to tell applications that they are in fact headless. I've seen some scripts break under that assumption.

Did it print a warning when upgrading on terminal?

They could have a prompt with a countdown, you opt in it you don't say 'no' after a minute.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#156

Post by nickfrostatx »

cname wrote: post #129
mikevm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably true, but then no one would opt-in.

Although if Homebrew wasn't using Google Analytics, maybe people would. It could just be a "Do you mind sending us anonymous usage data? [y/N]" prompt. Many other apps do something equivalent, and I don't mind giving it to them. The fact that those apps ask in the first place makes me much more amenable to the idea.

"Do you mind" would be counterintuitive. I see analytics and want to respond "n", for no analytics

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#157

Post by hk__2 »

SoOnThe1Hand wrote: post #143
hk__2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have the resources for this. If you have any suggestion for a service that doesn’t require us time to manage we’d be very grateful. Homebrew have a dozen maintainers for >30 PRs & issues per day plus maintaining our own CI infrastructure plus normal development; and all of this is on our spare time.

So the project is short-handed, but wants to take on scouring analytics to start packaging common things people are doing with the software. If you're too busy to do this "right" why bother? Are you hoping making more shortcuts will increase adoption? Current employer doesn't much care about these things, but last employer did. Having shared this thread with their IT folks, they've decided to cut people off from home…

As I wrote we’d be very grateful if you had any suggestion.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#158

Post by maxerickson »

falcolas wrote: post #154
derefr wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, even worse, there'd be a selection effect where the distribution of people who opt in is skewed from the total distribution of Homebrew users, ruining the dataset for any analysis one might want to do to it. There's a reason that Nielson Ratings collection isn't opt-in.

Funny, it's been quite a few years, but I remember being a Nielson family for a few months, and it was absolutely opt-in. We had to fill out a little booklet with what we were watching and data about ourselves.

You can't opt in to Nielson because they choose who to give the boxes to. Of course it's optional to do it if they do ask you if you want a box.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#159

Post by Touche »

khc wrote: post #124
daveguy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Either everyone should be notified before the first google analytics transmission so that they can choose to opt in our out. Or the default should be off and maybe on new installs they can choose to opt in. At the opt in/out dialog (when you give the users a choice) you can make the default to opt-in, but having the default as opt-in without any input from the user is bad form. It is similar to spammers calling…

How should this be handled if the software in question is a server daemon? I want the users to make an explicit choice but it's not obvious what's the best way to do that.

On install.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#160

Post by hk__2 »

Touche wrote: post #114
x0x0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trashing the telemetry data they're using to figure out what OS/ver people are using and bugs they are hitting makes you a real jerk use their opt-out if you want

Fair point, the public shaming that is happening now is probably punishment enough. Frankly I don't trust the opt-out code to be (and remain) bug-free. There are, as far as I can tell from searching, no tests. So I feel more comfortable maintaining a patched version with the calls nooped instead.

You can also submit a pull-request to add tests or fix any bug you can find.
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