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Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

tobiastom.name

51–60 of 342 posts

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is so good, make it out in. Out out is dishonest.

Opt in may be "more honest", but you're going to see a a lot less useful data as a result of it, because the pool of people who will opt in is less than the pool of people who wouldn't care what the default is.

Nobody said honest behaviour is easy.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#52
post #38

As I didn't update brew for a long time I did not have the analytics version. So I upgraded to see what happens. In fact it did NOT prompt me when enabling analytics, but it did display a notice (hidden in several hundred lines of output during brew upgrade): ------------------- + 5a9e19f...7f13b37 master -> origin/master (forced update) * [new tag] 0.1 -> 0.1 HEAD is now at 7f13b37 Merge pull request #1562 from wood…

This is why I think I missed it on all my machines, it really isn't noticable but it's a _big deal_.

*Edit: I run brew update; brew upgrade; brew clean on at least two of my three machines at least once a day, while I should be more vigilant opt-out is really something I'd expect from Microsoft or Google themselves and not an open source project such as Brew.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#53
post #38

As I didn't update brew for a long time I did not have the analytics version. So I upgraded to see what happens. In fact it did NOT prompt me when enabling analytics, but it did display a notice (hidden in several hundred lines of output during brew upgrade): ------------------- + 5a9e19f...7f13b37 master -> origin/master (forced update) * [new tag] 0.1 -> 0.1 HEAD is now at 7f13b37 Merge pull request #1562 from wood…

The whole point of opt out systems is to bury this info. That was very much intentional.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#54

This is google analytics. It's a bit different than google directly taking the data and using it for google purposes (e.g. streetview cars gathering SSID information for location pinpointing). The data (afaik) is used only by the homebrew team instead of Google. A more accurate summary would be "Brew is sending usage data to a google owned analytics service".

The data still goes to google. While the expectation would be that the data is only used by homebrew, there's no actual way of knowing that google isn't gratefully helping itself. And given the entire way Google's business works, they probably are.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#55
post #45
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Stealing' data? Is that like 'stealing' by downloading a movie?

By your definition, there would be no such thing as stealing IP, PII, launch codes or identities. However, those things are well accepted terms in all industries, including tech. You need to reconsider your strange restriction to mutual exclusion if you ever want to engage in meaningful conversations.

> 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.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#58
post #33
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…

> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites using the save technology No, it's not. µblock, µmatrix + clean links.

That would be an opt-out strategy, would it not?

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#60
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to start somewhere. Opt in should always be the standard.

Sure. Opt in would be nice. But only if it was opt in always and everywhere, and all users, technical or otherwise, knew the reasons why analytics are gathered for a product they use. I think in that case, many people would still opt in. I would. And I would hope users of my products would too.

Yes, and maybe it's okay if we don't have perfect visibility. We've been building things for thousands of years without Javascript event notifications, I'm sure we will do just fine with a little less data
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