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Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

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Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#201

Post by mort96 »

xavdid wrote: post #196
mort96 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telemetry has certainly been misused and will continue to be, but it can also be an invaluable tool for product development. This perfectly exemplifies the whole problem. Google views Go as a product which Google is responsible for. Go is a programming language. Go is critical infrastructure. Go is not a product. Viewing it as such is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Go is to its users. This will practically…

I guess that begs the question - if Go was an independent project (totally unattached from google) and had the exact same telemetry plans, how would you feel?

Better, because most independent projects aren't the world's biggest advertising company whose business model entirely revolves around invading people's privacy as much as possible.

But that doesn't mean it would be good. The fundamental misunderstanding of Go's place as infrastructure rather than a product remains. And even though I acknowledge that spying on your users provides useful insight into their behavior, that doesn't mean spying on users is good.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#202

Post by msla »

cube2222 wrote: post #69

Probably related to[0]. To anybody complaining that this should be opt-in: opt-in telemetry doesn't work. The reason for this is that most people don't care, but they don't care either way. They don't disable it when prompted, nor would they enable it manually. The idea of telemetry is being able to prioritize the work that will be most widely useful. For this you need a good and balanced sample of your users. You do…

Related, with further discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709078

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#203

Post by 0x6c6f6c »

mort96 wrote: post #195
cube2222 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're framing this as though the "ethical" choice were obvious, or that there was a person who "knew this was the ethical thing to do, but turned a blind eye". I disagree, I think it's a very contested topic, with lots of discussion whenever it's raised here, with either side possibly being a vocal minority.

Spying on people without their consent is not ethical.

Is it not consent if you tell the user that it's on, how to turn it off, and the user confirms the prompt having decided to not disable telemetry?

Because that's how OP framed it. There is an ethical way to track how your app is used, with user consent.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#204

Post by mort96 »

0x6c6f6c wrote: post #203
mort96 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spying on people without their consent is not ethical.

Is it not consent if you tell the user that it's on, how to turn it off, and the user confirms the prompt having decided to not disable telemetry? Because that's how OP framed it. There is an ethical way to track how your app is used, with user consent.

Putting text on the screen which would inform the user if the user was to read and comprehend it is not consent, no. (I mean, try to apply that logic to any other situation. You put a post-it note somewhere noticeable which says that you will silently mix some medication into your coworker's lunch unless they write some text on another post-it note placed on the kitchen fridge. When you then notice the absence of that second post-it note, and mix in some medication into their food, is that "consent"?)

Furthermore, looking at the asciinema from OctoSQL, users apparently have to edit their profile files on every single machine they intend to use Go on, then remember to verify that the profile applies and has no typos, make sure to never ever accidentally run the program in a context where environment variables aren't respected (would you remember to always use `sudo -E` if you need to use the tool as another user for example?). The danger seems extremely high that the user would, at some point, accidentally run the command without the env var set, even if they were technically proficient and did their best to opt out.

This is not how consent works.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#205

Post by balena »

Scaevolus wrote: post #194
balena wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but European law is nuanced over whether IP addresses are PII. If I'm not mistaken it's been ruled they are for ISPs, rationale being they have enough other data points that once correlated with IP addresses allow to identify individuals. Whether the same applies to Google (I suppose) is definitely not clear to me.

The proposal explicitly says they don't collect IP addresses or _any_ unique identifiers.

I assumed you need consent to receive PII, full stop. Again IANAL, but I assumed saying you don't do anything at all with the PII you receive doesn't exempt you from anything under GDPR. I may be wrong, though I hope not to be.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#206

Post by msla »

bioemerl wrote: post #16

Honestly, this may be unpopular with hacker news, but just add your own telemetry. If people don't like it they can turn it off, and telemetry is essential for a good product. Do let people turn it off though please.

If you do, and if people find out about it, they'll send you false data.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#207

Post by lokar »

wrldos wrote: post #164
cube2222 wrote: post #69

Probably related to[0]. To anybody complaining that this should be opt-in: opt-in telemetry doesn't work. The reason for this is that most people don't care, but they don't care either way. They don't disable it when prompted, nor would they enable it manually. The idea of telemetry is being able to prioritize the work that will be most widely useful. For this you need a good and balanced sample of your users. You do…

But that's wrong. There is no position for this in a civilised society: "If we ask everyone is going to say no, so we will steal it unless someone tells us not to"

That’s not their argument. They say if you ask everyone if it is ok most just ignore your question.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#208

Post by dang »

cube2222 wrote: post #69

Probably related to[0]. To anybody complaining that this should be opt-in: opt-in telemetry doesn't work. The reason for this is that most people don't care, but they don't care either way. They don't disable it when prompted, nor would they enable it manually. The idea of telemetry is being able to prioritize the work that will be most widely useful. For this you need a good and balanced sample of your users. You do…

(This comment was originally posted to a different thread that we merged here; that's why it now links to the page it's on.)

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#209

Post by tveita »

alyandon wrote: post #54

Oh Google - never stop being you. Not only is it going to be opt-out (because of course it would be coming from Google), I really like the whole "wait a week before sending telemetry" part that just coincidentally has the benefit of sneaking right past people that actively look for suspicious network activity when they've freshly installed something. Am I being uncharitable?

Google is institutionally incapable of producing software that doesn't track its users over the internet.

One example is the stock calculator app on Android, which according to their privacy statement may track your app interactions, device id, and email. Like what if users actually subtract more than they add or something.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.google....

Or the wallpapers they include on your phone - you guessed it!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.google....

If that's the kind of environment you work in I'm not surprised this proposals seems modest by comparison.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#210

Post by BonoboIO »

BonoboIO wrote: post #171
nine_k wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most software features are not like fire extinguishers. More than that, the interesting stats may be not even around user-visible features, but around internal mechanisms, like some cache hit rate, or how often is some branch in the compiler invoked. As long as stats are clearly inspectable, reasonably anonymized, and are opt-out, I'd be fine with sending them.

„ Most software features are not like fire extinguishers. „ Amen Sometimes some pretty niche feature, that is used by one individual that is loud, gets more attention than a feature, used by thousands or millions that are just silent users.

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