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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

#251

Post by red_admiral »

xxs wrote: post #249
red_admiral wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a comment on the issue tracker alleging that the CFO overrode concerns by the Director of Global Risk and Compliance.

wow, do you have a link for? pushing through legal recommendation is quite reckless. GDPR is quite a hot topic and the regulation has real teeth (aside the public backlash)

It's a comment by @rfc1459 on https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/5672 "The CFO trying to overrule issues raised by the Director of Global Risk and Compliance. \n\n Just... wow." relating to https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/merge_requests/14182#no... - which on closer reading refers to snowplow, not Pendo.

The original comment from Paul Machle is "I don’t understand. This should not be an opt in or an opt out. It is a condition of using our product. There is an acceptance of terms and the use of this data should be included in that."

I am not a lawyer, but that does contradict pretty much everything I've been taught about GDPR.

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

#252

Post by rimliu »

notJim wrote: post #170
stonogo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, you know that the shops you go to know what products you're buying from them, right? They know what products are selling. They don't necessarily know what I personally am buying. The point of those loyalty program cards is to associate purchasing habits with repeat customers. Those cards, you may note, are opt-in. To belabor the analogy, this was the equivalent of my grocery store putting cameras all over t…

> They know what products are selling. They don't necessarily know what I personally am buying. The vast majority of people use credit cards, which would allow them to track you. If you want to be more anonymous, you can use cash, just like you could install a blocker extension if you want to be more anonymous in the browser. > To belabor the analogy, this was the equivalent of my grocery store putting cameras all ov…

Correct me if I am wrong, but Apple Pay solves this, does it not?

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

#253

Post by TeMPOraL »

scrollaway wrote: post #237
TeMPOraL wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, the deterioration of quality in most modern software is a proof that telemetry makes people do bad job at keeping software working for its users.

Saying "the deterioration of quality in most modern software" is such a cop-out. There's no universal agreement upon any "general" deterioration, and I'm not sure you're keeping track of the "deteriorating" software that has telemetry vs. the one that doesn't. I personally find that a lot of software I use daily does improve over time, especially web software. You want a counter-example? Reddit has very little teleme…

> Saying "the deterioration of quality in most modern software" is such a cop-out.

Fair. It's just my opinion. Though I'm not the only one expressing it. You've probably heard the phrase "optimizing for lowest common denominator", or as 'dredmorbius calls it, "the tyranny of the minimum viable user".

> I personally find that a lot of software I use daily does improve over time, especially web software.

I find the reverse. GMail and Dropbox being prominent examples.

> Reddit has very little telemetry and quite famously barely looks at the data it does gather.

Huh. That's not what I expected. I see Reddit as poster child of making the UX worse and worse, driven by advertising goals - something that generally does correlate strongly with running telemetry. I'm confused about them now.

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

#254

Post by reactor4 »

journalctl wrote: post #134
brlewis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people back then should have written angry replies to Google's and Facebook's advance warnings about the tracking they were planning on doing. /s

Oh, so we only live in a surveillance-capitalist state because we didn’t send Facebook and Google enough emails? D’oh! Who knew it was that simple?

read it again...

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

#255

Post by majewsky »

witrak wrote: post #245
SamReidHughes wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU court needs to actually be able to enforce its decisions, which may require a US court.

Are you sure that American companies are immune to fines resulting from EU court sentences if they want to make business in EU?

If at all, then only as long as they're conducting their business with EU customers entirely from the US. As soon as they're putting servers in a colo in the EU, there's something that EU authorities could confiscate to cover outstanding fines.

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

#256

Post by account42 »

scrollaway wrote: post #184
musicale wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telemetry still sucks. I don't want it, and it should never be opt-out.

You opt in to first party telemetry by using gitlab. It is impossible for you not to send data to gitlab when using gitlab. Self-host it if you don't want it. I dunno what to tell you; at some point, the company does have to observe how people use their product, and they'll do so a lot more effectively by looking at how most people are using it, rather than … idk, send a survey or something. Not that they won't do th…

> You opt in to first party telemetry by using gitlab. It is impossible for you not to send data to gitlab when using gitlab.

There is still a difference between sending actions you selected to the server and tracking where you move the mouse while on the page in your browser or other bs like that. One is required to implement the functionality, the other is not.

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

#257

Post by pferde »

mav3rick wrote: post #203
segmondy wrote: post #112

This is just the beginning, at some point, they will flip. Google was our darling, that could do no wrong. Just imagine, to be bold and say "Don't be evil!" And then, what happened? This is just a short term reaction to quiet down the noise, but their long term hand has been exposed. They are not going to do it, but note that nothing says they won't try to or do it again in the far future. What I really will like to…

What happened ? Google is still one of the better players around. They pulled out of DoD contracts etc. This site just hates it for every single thing..it's just group think now , majority of the general public still loves it.

Majority of the general public does definitely not love, nor hate Google. They are merely indifferent and tolerate it, just like they tolerate Microsoft, or more recently Facebook, despite all the flaws and annoyances their products have.

The general public does not really care, they just want to get on with their lives.

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

#258

Post by xiphias2 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #226
bigiain wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

There is some potent American law lurking about, so I'm not going to assume the GDPR is enforceable in ways untested in U.S. court.

https://gdpr.eu/compliance-checklist-us-companies/

Good luck trying your luck with international law.

,,You may be wondering how the European Union will enforce a law in territory it does not control. The fact is, foreign governments help other countries enforce their laws through mutual assistance treaties and other mechanisms all the time. GDPR Article 50 addresses this question directly. So far, the EU’s reach has not been tested, but no doubt data protection authorities are exploring their options on a case-by-case basis.''

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

#259

Post by matz1 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #210
matz1 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's really not too much to ask smokers to not externalize the health problems of their addiction to other people. On the contrary, a decent human being would not willingly expose non-smokers to cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, there's not enough decency around to outweight convenience, so it had to be turned into law. As for telemetry, I can't find any reason one would willingly subject to it. But even if, that's why…

>It's really not too much to ask smokers to not externalize

Sure, from the perspective of non-smokers.

>On the contrary, a decent human being would not willingly expose non-smokers to cigarette smoke

A decent non smoker can also excuse themselves, in order not to disturb the smokers.

>Unfortunately, there's not enough decency around to outweight convenience, so it had to be turned into law

This is nothing to do with decency, the smokers doesn't have enough power/influence to prevent it to become law.

Lets say in a place where 95% are smokers, or even in the place there are 5% smokers but those 5% has a lot of power/influence. Do you think there will be law againts smokers ?

>As for telemetry, I can't find any reason one would willingly subject to it

You mean willingly subject to tracking ? Like I said before, I am fine with tracking because the benefit outweight the cost, it gives me something in return, free or cheap service.

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

#260

Post by MrCapybara »

maccam94 wrote: post #233
onion2k wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding was that Gitlab wanted to collect your data to improve their product. Gitlab could have collected anonymous data, with opting out of collection as the default, and promised not to sell it if they seriously believed it was about improving their product. Plenty of products record telemetry data only if you opt in to the program. Users understand and often accept that. That approach would have generated…

opt-in telemetry does not allow you to draw statistical conclusions because your data is skewed/incomplete due to selection bias. This is why developers are so intent on opt-out, it ensures that they have more accurate data to drive their roadmap. Clearly there are going to be privacy concerns with this, so they really need to minimize how much identifiable information they collect, and then communicate to users what…

> This is why developers are so intent on opt-out

In GitLab's case, developers weren't. Their C-level executives simply overruled them and forced the change.

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