5 ms·

And it can be turned off. It's not a big deal at all. People are making mountains out of molehills.

Fnoord 9y ago
Ah, so opt-out is suddenly totally OK. A feature being able to be turned off is a plus, but default features not in the interest of the user are a minus. Especially not when users don't have an easy way to opt-out. If users reasonably want to only opt-in such a feature, you as developer should implement it as such.
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  > Especially not when users don't have an easy way to opt-out. When I first heard about it took me like 35 seconds to opt-out -- open options and unclick the little clicky box, easy peasy.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    Good for you. If I need to be happy every time I opt-out "when I hear about it" which is often "when I already used the software" and get USDs for every hour I didn't opt-out even though I'd have loved to opt-out right away, then I'd be one hell of a happy Richie Rich. Having to go through settings in software when you install it, to get the software to work the way the average user wants it to, is annoying. An example could be removing a bitcoin miner from the software, or disabling ads in uTorrent, or disabling telemetry in Windows 10. Firefox as well, but at least they tell you about it right away, and they started doing it later. Not good, but less bad. Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep either wasting their time or getting their data? Ah well, at least in Europe we're getting GDPR.
    - UncleEntity 9y ago
      > Good for you. If I need to be happy every time I opt-out "when I hear about it" which is often "when I already used the software" and get USDs for every hour I didn't opt-out even though I'd have loved to opt-out right away, then I'd be one hell of a happy Richie Rich. It's not like they owe me anything, I downloaded their software for free and use it for free with absolutely no expectation other than "I'll use it as long as it works for me." If it gets annoying I'll replace it with something that isn't just in this particular case it was a lot easier to click a box than search out a new adblocker. > Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep either wasting their time or getting their data? Because they want to use Windows 10 or uTorrent or something with a bitcoin miner instead of searching out alternatives. Personally, other than ABP, I can think of no other cases of this happening on my stock (other than the chrome repo) Fedora box.
      - Fnoord 9y ago
        I know its strange in 2017 and for youngsters in general (and that's NOFI; its a general observation and zeitgeist; I don't know your age nor am I interested in such) but it is important to note that "for free" doesn't equal "go use my PII for profit" or "go help others receive my PII" or "I will allow you to use my computer as part of your cloud without my consent". Glad we're getting GDPR in EU. I hope other countries like USA will follow suit. US citizens deserve such protection just as much as EU citizens. Not to mention the rest of the world. We'll have to see how it works out in practice though. As for the owing and such regarding FOSS, that's related to warranty and such. That doesn't mean its cool to deliver the software crippled. Especially not without mentioning it is crippled beforehand. We got a word for that in the physical world: dishonesty.
        UncleEntity 9y ago
        > I know its strange in 2017 and for youngsters in general (and that's NOFI; its a general observation and zeitgeist; I don't know your age nor am I interested in such) but it is important to note that "for free" doesn't equal "go use my PII for profit" or "go help others receive my PII" or "I will allow you to use my computer as part of your cloud without my consent". Which is why you should use some due diligence before (and after) choosing which products you use. It's not like anyone's forcing you to sell your soul so you can find out your best friend's dog Fluffy just went to the groomers and here's the pictures. I see this like those people who go and buy a house next to an airport then go crazy complaining to the city about airplane noise, they benefit from cheaper prices (because most people don't actually want to live next to an airport) but then feel entitled enough to feel everyone else should bend over backwards for their personal preferences. > Glad we're getting GDPR in EU...We'll have to see how it works out in practice though. Produce a digital wasteland IMHO...like the tariff wars that (partly) led up to the Great Depression.
        Fnoord 9y ago
        Lets draw an analogy with the physical world to see how it works there (often terrible, cringe worthy analogies, I admit!). If I buy a product, I should have to read the manual, sure. Afterwards, before using it. If some tool has a dangerous side effect or important feature I should take into account the salesman would have to tell me about it. Beforehand. If I buy a CD, but I can only play it on computers and not on discman or CD player, it has to be advertised as such. Well, at least it was that way in the 90s in my jurisdiction. In the previous century I did not expect any tool to send back data about usage (including my private data). Back then it was called phoning home [1]. It was very much frowned upon. Although, as the internet took off, it started to become more rampant as a way to verify software. For example, I remember a personal firewall trying to phone home to verify it was licensed which you could block with... itself. Later they fixed that, but you could just use a hex editor to fix that. Nowadays we've migrated from pay to use model (proprietary software) to service for your privacy model (SaaS). We get disillusioned that things are free when in reality they're not. In the physical world, but more so in the digital world. We don't know how we are paying, and that's a problem. [2] > I see this like those people who go and buy a house next to an airport then go crazy complaining to the city about airplane noise, they benefit from cheaper prices (because most people don't actually want to live next to an airport) but then feel entitled enough to feel everyone else should bend over backwards for their personal preferences. No, those people knew beforehand what they were buying. We don't, else we'd change those settings right away. Claiming that people consent to their privacy being discarded is dishonest. They don't fully understand the effect of their actions. The developers do know, but they don't care, maybe cause they're aspies who can keep distance from that --I'm not sure. As for people who live near an airport, I happen to know a tad bit more about that with regards to the airport near Amsterdam (I live near Amsterdam). It all depends on the flight routes (the lanes for landing and take off). For example, I don't hear any airplanes except in the summer because then that specific route is used more. Not every 15 minutes though like my aunt who lives a few km from one lane in the Green Heart on a boat with a beautiful land. With, during the summer (winter etc less), planes going over. Low. Every. 15. Minutes. It would drive me nuts. > Produce a digital wasteland IMHO...like the tariff wars that (partly) led up to the Great Depression. How so? Look back at what I wrote here [2]. Don't you think the GDPR will make it very transparent to users because they have to give their consent? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoning_home https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoning_home [2] See other [2]
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      "Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep" Not only the software developers and to why? Well because it works, because most act like sheep. I wonder how much of that comes from having been dominated for century's by a religion who literally told (and tell) all the people that they are sheep, needings them as shepherds ...

Ah, so opt-out is suddenly totally OK. A feature being able to be turned off is a plus, but default features not in the interest of the user are a minus. Especially not when users don't have an easy way to opt-out. If users reasonably want to only opt-in such a feature, you as developer should implement it as such.

UncleEntity 9y ago
> Especially not when users don't have an easy way to opt-out. When I first heard about it took me like 35 seconds to opt-out -- open options and unclick the little clicky box, easy peasy.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  Good for you. If I need to be happy every time I opt-out "when I hear about it" which is often "when I already used the software" and get USDs for every hour I didn't opt-out even though I'd have loved to opt-out right away, then I'd be one hell of a happy Richie Rich. Having to go through settings in software when you install it, to get the software to work the way the average user wants it to, is annoying. An example could be removing a bitcoin miner from the software, or disabling ads in uTorrent, or disabling telemetry in Windows 10. Firefox as well, but at least they tell you about it right away, and they started doing it later. Not good, but less bad. Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep either wasting their time or getting their data? Ah well, at least in Europe we're getting GDPR.
  - UncleEntity 9y ago
    > Good for you. If I need to be happy every time I opt-out "when I hear about it" which is often "when I already used the software" and get USDs for every hour I didn't opt-out even though I'd have loved to opt-out right away, then I'd be one hell of a happy Richie Rich. It's not like they owe me anything, I downloaded their software for free and use it for free with absolutely no expectation other than "I'll use it as long as it works for me." If it gets annoying I'll replace it with something that isn't just in this particular case it was a lot easier to click a box than search out a new adblocker. > Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep either wasting their time or getting their data? Because they want to use Windows 10 or uTorrent or something with a bitcoin miner instead of searching out alternatives. Personally, other than ABP, I can think of no other cases of this happening on my stock (other than the chrome repo) Fedora box.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      I know its strange in 2017 and for youngsters in general (and that's NOFI; its a general observation and zeitgeist; I don't know your age nor am I interested in such) but it is important to note that "for free" doesn't equal "go use my PII for profit" or "go help others receive my PII" or "I will allow you to use my computer as part of your cloud without my consent". Glad we're getting GDPR in EU. I hope other countries like USA will follow suit. US citizens deserve such protection just as much as EU citizens. Not to mention the rest of the world. We'll have to see how it works out in practice though. As for the owing and such regarding FOSS, that's related to warranty and such. That doesn't mean its cool to deliver the software crippled. Especially not without mentioning it is crippled beforehand. We got a word for that in the physical world: dishonesty.
      - UncleEntity 9y ago
        > I know its strange in 2017 and for youngsters in general (and that's NOFI; its a general observation and zeitgeist; I don't know your age nor am I interested in such) but it is important to note that "for free" doesn't equal "go use my PII for profit" or "go help others receive my PII" or "I will allow you to use my computer as part of your cloud without my consent". Which is why you should use some due diligence before (and after) choosing which products you use. It's not like anyone's forcing you to sell your soul so you can find out your best friend's dog Fluffy just went to the groomers and here's the pictures. I see this like those people who go and buy a house next to an airport then go crazy complaining to the city about airplane noise, they benefit from cheaper prices (because most people don't actually want to live next to an airport) but then feel entitled enough to feel everyone else should bend over backwards for their personal preferences. > Glad we're getting GDPR in EU...We'll have to see how it works out in practice though. Produce a digital wasteland IMHO...like the tariff wars that (partly) led up to the Great Depression.
        Fnoord 9y ago
        Lets draw an analogy with the physical world to see how it works there (often terrible, cringe worthy analogies, I admit!). If I buy a product, I should have to read the manual, sure. Afterwards, before using it. If some tool has a dangerous side effect or important feature I should take into account the salesman would have to tell me about it. Beforehand. If I buy a CD, but I can only play it on computers and not on discman or CD player, it has to be advertised as such. Well, at least it was that way in the 90s in my jurisdiction. In the previous century I did not expect any tool to send back data about usage (including my private data). Back then it was called phoning home [1]. It was very much frowned upon. Although, as the internet took off, it started to become more rampant as a way to verify software. For example, I remember a personal firewall trying to phone home to verify it was licensed which you could block with... itself. Later they fixed that, but you could just use a hex editor to fix that. Nowadays we've migrated from pay to use model (proprietary software) to service for your privacy model (SaaS). We get disillusioned that things are free when in reality they're not. In the physical world, but more so in the digital world. We don't know how we are paying, and that's a problem. [2] > I see this like those people who go and buy a house next to an airport then go crazy complaining to the city about airplane noise, they benefit from cheaper prices (because most people don't actually want to live next to an airport) but then feel entitled enough to feel everyone else should bend over backwards for their personal preferences. No, those people knew beforehand what they were buying. We don't, else we'd change those settings right away. Claiming that people consent to their privacy being discarded is dishonest. They don't fully understand the effect of their actions. The developers do know, but they don't care, maybe cause they're aspies who can keep distance from that --I'm not sure. As for people who live near an airport, I happen to know a tad bit more about that with regards to the airport near Amsterdam (I live near Amsterdam). It all depends on the flight routes (the lanes for landing and take off). For example, I don't hear any airplanes except in the summer because then that specific route is used more. Not every 15 minutes though like my aunt who lives a few km from one lane in the Green Heart on a boat with a beautiful land. With, during the summer (winter etc less), planes going over. Low. Every. 15. Minutes. It would drive me nuts. > Produce a digital wasteland IMHO...like the tariff wars that (partly) led up to the Great Depression. How so? Look back at what I wrote here [2]. Don't you think the GDPR will make it very transparent to users because they have to give their consent? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoning_home https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoning_home [2] See other [2]
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    "Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep" Not only the software developers and to why? Well because it works, because most act like sheep. I wonder how much of that comes from having been dominated for century's by a religion who literally told (and tell) all the people that they are sheep, needings them as shepherds ...