Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

tobiastom.name

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 342 posts

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#261

Post by [deleted] »

lewiseason wrote: post #252
codedokode wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cookie warnings are an indicator showing that a website takes part in a global spying network. But I think instead of warnings browser developers should just disable third-party cookies by default. Sadly, the most popular browser developer by conicidence owns a popular tracking service so that is not going to happen.

> global spying network Or maybe they want to persist session information? Maybe browsers should prompt, instead of each website, but it's too late for that now.

[deleted]

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#262

Post by CJefferson »

lorenzfx wrote: post #213
CJefferson wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "stealing data" to record that certain options in my program are never used, or used frequently, or whenever a user clicks on options A,B and C in sequence the app crashes? My problem is that I believe that 90% of the users of my app won't care one way or the other if I record these stats. If I default opt-out these people, then I lose all that useful data and in the process, I believe, make my app worse for ev…

How about choosing no default, and instead ask the user on first run? `Do you want to send usage data to the developer? (yes/no)`

I imagine it would get REALLY annoying if every command line program started doing that, every time you logged into a new machine.

Of course, that suggests we should introduce some kind of standard, then bash (or whatever shell you use) could prompt you once, and every other program could use that setting.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#263

Post by andybak »

jakobegger wrote: post #94
daenney wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The information brew collects I would hardly call personally identifiable. Take a look at what they collect: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics....

They can call it "anonymous data" as much as they want, but in the end it's still data transmitted to Google's servers. If you are simultaneously logged into your Google account on that computer, the information is not anonymous anymore. Google could with high probability correlate connections.

> They can call it "anonymous data" as much as they want, but in the end it's still data transmitted to Google's servers.

You appear to be saying that it's wrong to send any data to Google - which strikes me as an indefensibly extreme position. For example if they were tracking a simple count "number of times anyone anywhere has run brew" and it was stored as a single global integer then it's hard to imagine what issue you could have with it as it's basically no worse than a simple hit counter on a website.

So what are you saying? Surely the problem has to relate to what data is collected?

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#264

Post by andybak »

hueving wrote: post #205
andybak wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stealing IP This is the usage I'm most firmly resisting. > PII, launch codes or identities All inaccurate to varying degrees - or at the very least metaphorical/rhetorical uses. If you're allowed to push a meaning in one direction then I'm allowed to point it out and attempt to bend it back a little.

>push a meaning in one direction then I'm allowed to point it out and attempt to bend it back a little. I'm not pushing anything. Your argument is about whether or not copying information is 'stealing'. I'm just pointing out that it's a very commonly agreed upon vernacular all over many industries. Call your credit card company and tell them someone stole your credit card number and see if they understand what you ar…

You don't see anything even slightly problematic about referring to opt-out (rather than opt-in) aggregate and presumably anonymous usage statistics as 'stealing'?

You don't think that is possibly somewhere towards the further reaches of consensus on what is a reasonable application of the word?

You're welcome to disagree with my position but you're going a touch further than that. You're also accusing me of arguing in bad faith and being somehow aware that my argument has no merits. Considering I think I'm stating a fairly reasonable view I find that somewhat disingenuous in return.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#266

Post by lewiseason »

kuschku wrote: post #258
lewiseason wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> global spying network Or maybe they want to persist session information? Maybe browsers should prompt, instead of each website, but it's too late for that now.

> Or maybe they want to persist session information? That’s specifically exempt from the cookie law: Any technical cookie – session information, config options, etc – is allowed without any request. The Cookie law only requires opt-in for tracking. Such as Google Analytics.

Yeah, good point. I couldn't recall if it was third-party cookies, or if it were tracking cookies that the requirement stated.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#267

Post by CJefferson »

stan_rogers wrote: post #238
CJefferson wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "stealing data" to record that certain options in my program are never used, or used frequently, or whenever a user clicks on options A,B and C in sequence the app crashes? My problem is that I believe that 90% of the users of my app won't care one way or the other if I record these stats. If I default opt-out these people, then I lose all that useful data and in the process, I believe, make my app worse for ev…

You should, perhaps, question your beliefs. When I get "do you want to send...", I only very rarely click "yes/OK", and then only if that and the OS were the only things running and the problem is locally reproducible. The state of my machine is none of your damned business.

You could be right. I could pop up a message early on, saying I'm doing analytics.

I think, based on the conversation here, I'm going to make it very clear there is analytics, but not allow turning them off. This is (I think, you are welcome to disagree of course) the best situation:

* Everyone knows there is analytics going on, no hiding. * I get good quality analytics from my actual users, as no-one can opt out (well, you could start port blocking, I'm not going to make the program stop working in that situation).

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#268

Post by quesera »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #244
pvinis wrote: post #19

Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. Let's stop complaining about stuff that someone does and tell you they do it. There are many more that do the same th…

> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Homebrew lead maintainer here. This is exactly why we do it. To repeat myself from below: we're chronically understaffed and underfunded. > Furthermore, now that you know, for brew specifically, will you opt out? It's worth noting: if everyone who uses a niche piece of software opt-out when it breaks we'll look at our analytics and likely remove…

You do not need telemetry from everyone to make informed decisions like this.

If just 1% of users opt-in to telemetry, you would have more than enough data for a representative sample set.

This is the whole point. You can do the right thing without any loss of data usefulness. So why persist in doing the wrong thing??

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#269

Post by hk__2 »

mrob wrote: post #212
raesene6 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the, valid, concern mentioned in the original comment is that the notification of this is not prominent enough. Also Ideally I'd suggest you should be looking for informed consent before starting to gather information of this nature where an application previously did not do it. Something similar to Debian's request to submit data for the package popularity ratings that is provided when you install debian mig…

Debian's popularity contest package gets it right. You're asked once during installation, with the default being to decline. If you keep choosing "next" without reading or thinking you get a working installation with your privacy intact, and it never bothers you again.

Debian's popularity contest package is completely biased and nobody uses it as a serious source. You can’t expect to have reliable data with opt-in.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#270

Post by jeena »

CJefferson wrote: post #262
lorenzfx wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about choosing no default, and instead ask the user on first run? `Do you want to send usage data to the developer? (yes/no)`

I imagine it would get REALLY annoying if every command line program started doing that, every time you logged into a new machine. Of course, that suggests we should introduce some kind of standard, then bash (or whatever shell you use) could prompt you once, and every other program could use that setting.

At least this would make the problem with how many commandline tools are tracking you visible, and perhaps would start a discussion on the necessity of tracking for tools like brew, ls, cp, dd and so on.
Post reply on HN