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Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#81

Post by callalex »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #70
toddmorey wrote: post #65

I have a funny story: I went to go to a notion doc and just intuitively pressed command-O in the app to open the notion doc I wanted. Of course that command doesn’t open notion docs—what that does is turn on audio transcription. So two hours later, I realize I’ve transcribed at the bottom of our team overview page what read like the diary of a madman from fragments of conversation I was having with my wife and dog. I…

Did it transcribe the dog? How long until we get a LLM that can translate dog barks...

People are doing some interesting work in an attempt to categorize whale and dolphin communication https://blog.padi.com/talk-to-whales-with-ai/

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#82

Post by sturza »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #78
sturza wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your PMs should not decide what your software does with my hardware without me giving my informed consent. Our PMs don't like making things opt-in. -> Your users don't like making things opt-out. Low usage metrics is a UX problem. Activating it without informed consent gives you bloated metrics anyway.

It’s just not true that users don’t like making things opt-out. HN Users tend not to like it but I think a lot of users dislike the alternatives: either because they’re undiscoverable (toggle in settings or a menu) or intrusive (various sorts of what’s new overlays). Imo, the question of when to make things opt-in vs. opt-out is fairly subtle and largely depends on the feature and pre-existing trust.

There are infinite ways on how to inform users of a new feature and ask to activate it.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#83

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

sturza wrote: post #82
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just not true that users don’t like making things opt-out. HN Users tend not to like it but I think a lot of users dislike the alternatives: either because they’re undiscoverable (toggle in settings or a menu) or intrusive (various sorts of what’s new overlays). Imo, the question of when to make things opt-in vs. opt-out is fairly subtle and largely depends on the feature and pre-existing trust.

There are infinite ways on how to inform users of a new feature and ask to activate it.

And nearly all of them are annoying and disrupt my flow.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#84

Post by brookst »

threetonesun wrote: post #73
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make a pop-up with the opt-in/out for all the features on first launch with everything defaulted to on so people can turn features off and get notified that such features exist. You can also use this to gather metrics on what features people are actually interested in. Good compromise.

Nothing makes me not want to use software more than it asking questions about how I want to use the software before I've used the software. Runner up is the "what's new" tutorial overlays.

Just seeing the words “got it” raises my blood pressure.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#85

Post by shreddit »

pat64 wrote: post #54

As someone who has built an app that detects calls and meetings, this isn’t as nefarious as you’re making it out to be. You can detect patterns of hardware use that suggest you’re in a meeting without actually eavesdropping on an actual audio stream of any kind. Basically is some app using the mic hardware for something?? Likely a meeting so.

It’s not necessarily about what they doing, more like how they do things. They could at least tell me about it, like: Hey, we check whether you joined a meeting to provide you with our note taking assistant. Are you okay with that?

Don’t assume consent.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#86

Post by brookst »

callalex wrote: post #79
meindnoch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our PMs don't like making things opt-in Then refuse implementing it. Have some dignity for God's sake.

Having that kind of power as an implementer requires the backing of a union.

And the utter certainty that you are infallible.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#87

Post by whalesalad »

runjake wrote: post #33
whalesalad wrote: post #3

This is an unintended benefit of being on a Linux workstation - the only client available is the browser.

Notion and all these kinds of apps are available for Linux. But yeah, I don't recommend using them. Just use them in the browser.

There is no "native" app for Linux.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#88

Post by brookst »

const_cast wrote: post #62
XCabbage wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I don't understand the objection to this. If the app was sending off any data to Notion without consent, that would obviously be a privacy issue, but why is it a problem for a desktop app to simply check if your mic is being used and offer to record?

The application is almost certainly sending off data to Notion without consent, you just wouldn't be able to tell. If a company is willing to do even small privacy violations, I do not trust them at all. Feel free to run OpenSnitch or LittleSnitch - most apps are opening connections to many domains you won't recognize. Your guess is as good as anyone's what data they're exfiltrating. That is, of course, unless you us…

Any evidence for “almost certainly”? That seems a huge leap of faith to build a whole worldview on. Kind of circular, really.

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#89

Post by graphememes »

meindnoch wrote: post #66
jitl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notion doesn't like making things opt-in. A feature that's opt-in will get like 1% of the use of a feature that's opt-out. A happier middle ground would be to enable by default and show a "I don't like this, pls turn it off" button the first few times. EDIT: shouldn't single out any specific role here. We think opt-out, enable-by-default makes a feature have far greater total utility. But we could do more to provide…

>Our PMs don't like making things opt-in Then refuse implementing it. Have some dignity for God's sake.

what an emotional response to work

Re: Tell HN: Notion Desktop is monitoring your audio and network

#90

Post by dman »

jitl wrote: post #53
chinathrow wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make it opt-in and this would be not an issue.

Notion doesn't like making things opt-in. A feature that's opt-in will get like 1% of the use of a feature that's opt-out. A happier middle ground would be to enable by default and show a "I don't like this, pls turn it off" button the first few times. EDIT: shouldn't single out any specific role here. We think opt-out, enable-by-default makes a feature have far greater total utility. But we could do more to provide…

thats a red flag imho
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