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Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

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Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#141

Post by matz1 »

necovek wrote: post #131
matz1 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what about the people who are fine with the tracking and selling personal data (I for one) ? I think its great that let say google manage to make money out of my personal data, and in return I get to use their of free service.

Great for you. But please smoke outside so the rest of us don't have to deal with negatives (eg. smell if not health issues). (Hopefully you get the parallel: some of us consider it harmful, and the fact that you don't care or you actually enjoy it does not mean we should be subjected to it)

In the regards of smoking, sure its great for the non-smokers but its sucks for the rest of smokers.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#142

Post by sleepytimetea »

swasheck wrote: post #65
smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at GitHub. It's a similar service with unlimited private repos for free.

thanks. not sure why i was downvoted but the last time i checked, GH only allowed 1

You are correct but Github allows them now so I moved back to GH.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#143

Post by mbesto »

bigiain wrote: post #125
mbesto wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lesson learned here - the CFO is not and should not be responsible for a company's tracking policies and communication thereof.

Sadly, that "F" means they pretty much have veto power over anything anybody (with the possible exception of the CTO and the board) wants to do.

Uh, that's not how it works. Legitimate veto power is usually based on a board and/or shares of the company. Not to mention most CFOs are appointed positions in startups, because they are usually not roles filled in the early days of a tech startups life (as opposed to CEOs and CTOs).

Note - it is worth saying, CFOs are, generally speaking consider extremely important positions for many companies, even more-so than the CEO. But this isn't because they make policy decisions or conduct external communications, but rather because they control the lifeblood of any company - the money.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#144

Post by throwawayhhakdl »

matz1 wrote: post #138
stiray wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should really be praised... Without further, congratulations to everyone protesting against this gitlab move. This is something that should be done years back when google started with its tracking, same with facebook. This was the behaviour that should be seen each and every time some company wants to take advantage of its users. But to my sadness it is rarely seen. So once again congratulations to each and ever…

If you want to ban tracking, I would totally oppose it. I think its great that google manage to make money out of my personal data, and in return I get to use their of free service. Fortunately, in the regards of google user, there are more people who are fine (or don't care) with tracking.

What google services do you think would not continue to be free if they couldn’t mine your personal data?

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#145

Post by open-source-ux »

tjoff wrote: post #75
stiray wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should really be praised... Without further, congratulations to everyone protesting against this gitlab move. This is something that should be done years back when google started with its tracking, same with facebook. This was the behaviour that should be seen each and every time some company wants to take advantage of its users. But to my sadness it is rarely seen. So once again congratulations to each and ever…

It was done. There even was those small banners that said something in the way of "if you have gmail I won't mail you" etc. Thing is, the broader public don't care. The difference between gitlab and gmail is primarily that developers care more about this stuff and value their code more than most people care about their email. They are also much more informed in the matter, most using gmail haven't got a clue.

"...developers care more about this stuff..."

No, they only care when the tools they are using are targeted. Otherwise, they couldn't care less.

We have tracking on websites and in apps on an industrial scale - built by developers in technology companies. We even have tracking of school kids courtesy of ChromeOS. When have developers ever shown any care about that? When have they ever spoken out about that? They're more likely to rush to defend that software and the company that built it: It's not being used to build profiles, or the data is aggregated and anonymous.

Presumably, if GitLab tracked behaviour 'anonymously' and in aggregate form, that would all be fine? Didn't think so. The hypocrisy that runs through the programming profession when it comes to online tracking really knows no end.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#146

Post by stefan_ »

tyre wrote: post #58

The reaction to this whole saga has been insane. Chill out people. They fucked up, users gave feedback, they listened. This isn't some corporate conspiracy, some grand ethical dilemma with an evil company on one side and some white knight hackers on the other. Let's imagine for a second that they are people trying to do the right thing, with years of history doing the best they can. They wanted to measure usage to ma…

Uhm, they sent a mail saying "we're locking all access to your project data until you accept our new ToS, or fuck off".

It doesn't take a genius to realize the mistake here.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#147

Post by bigiain »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #119
xiphias2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wanted to violate my rights given by Article 7.2 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this is clearly making the product worse. What's great with GitLab compared to other companies is that they are doing things in the open, while another company would just violate my rights without me knowing it. If you go through the comments, multiple (toxic) people in GitLab doesn't care about user rights, just w…

You can opt out by not using it, right? They'd be supposed to drop EU users, under some interpretation of the law. But even if they didn't, then as an EU user, you'd still be able to protect your own rights by ceasing use of their services.

GDPR pretty much says "you can't do that".

The advice I have bookmarked (which I'll admit is not a legal opinion or the source legislation) says:

‘specific website content’ means that you should not make ‘general access’ subject to conditions requiring users to accept non-essential cookies – you can only limit certain content if the user does not consent;

and

the term ‘legitimate purpose’ refers to facilitating the provision of an information society service – ie, a service the user explicitly requests. This does not include third parties such as analytics services or online advertising.

As I read/understand things, unless the service you're providing is "being tracked by advertisers or analytics", you cannot block ac cess to users based on then not consenting to being tracked for advertising/analytics.

Pretty sure "They'd be supposed to drop EU users, under some interpretation of the law." is correct there, and that if Gitlab wants to have tracking consent as a mandatory requirement for using their source control service, they'd need to stop selling it in EU completely.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#148

Post by teej »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #121
mkl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web tracking is different in that it's ongoing tracking of behaviour. When I buy something from a shop, that's the end of their knowledge: the shop has no idea what I use it for.

When you make non-cash purchases in a shop they sell your purchase data to an aggregator who adds it into their profile of you and derives demographic classifications from that. Single woman driving a Subaru? Your odds of being lesbian go up a few points. We'll target you for a certain form of advertising. This has been going on for decades. Before the web ever existed.

To make it worse - the shop, your credit card issuer (aka the bank) and the payment processor (aka Visa) are all each doing this.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#149

Post by tomnipotent »

stiray wrote: post #38
jbk wrote: post #27

We received an apology email at the same time, well written, explaining what they did wrong, apologizing, promising to do a post-mortem, promising to not send to 3rd party trackers, and saying they did a mistake and waiting for feedbacks on the issue tracker. And with very little BS in the mail. Such level of transparency, of apologizing and clarity, especially written at the first person "I am truly sorry." is very…

What should really be praised... Without further, congratulations to everyone protesting against this gitlab move. This is something that should be done years back when google started with its tracking, same with facebook. This was the behaviour that should be seen each and every time some company wants to take advantage of its users. But to my sadness it is rarely seen. So once again congratulations to each and ever…

> same with facebook

There was a huge uproar when Facebook first launched "Beacon", and it was cancelled as a result.

Unfortunately it just morphed into the Facebook Platform and eventually the Pixel. Same pig with different lipstick.

Re: Gitlab cancels plan on tracking user behavior on GitLab.com

#150

Post by jen20 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #127
jacquesm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the CFO is dead wrong. I'm a very vocal Gitlab advocate and would have stopped promoting them if they did this. There are 100's if not 1000's of people like me and we help build Gitlab value. And then there is the GDPR to contend with.

The only sense in which he's "wrong" is as you describe: people won't want to use the software, and it's a bad decision when it comes to making money. He's not wrong on some principles-based reason.

Since GitLab have operations, sales and other employees inside the European Union, and the assertions from the CFO are contrary to European law, he is wrong for legal reasons.
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