5 ms·

Isn't it? When I opened VS Code on a new computer for the first time today, a message popped up with step by step instructions to opt out

prepend 8y ago
Tracking should always be opt-in, not opt-out. I base this on expected user preference and trying to optimize for user happiness and functionality. I don’t think this is as true for non-OSS software where the purpose is likely more toward revenue generation than community and user functionality.
- nurettin 8y ago
  What is the crucial difference between a popup saying "would you like to opt in?" and popup saying "would you like to opt out?"
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    User perception of a default state.
  - ComodoHacker 8y ago
    Opt-in telemetry likely won't serve it's purpose. Very few users change the defaults. To the point where you don't get enough data for useful insights.
    - naikrovek 8y ago
      That is exactly right. Almost no one would turn it on if it were off by defauly, which makes data collected by those few users strongly biased against general users and their usage patterns. (Meaning that the data you do collect will be useless.) This is literally the only reason that telemetry is almost always on by default. There is no illuminati secretly buying developers to learn your secrets via application telemetry, and it's laughable to think that's the case, in my mind.
      - rum3 8y ago
        If people turn it off when they have a choice, and only leave it on when they are unaware it exists then obviously there is a problem. I don't see how it is laughable to be paranoid in this case.
        nurettin 8y ago
        isn't paranoia by definition irrational?
        rum3 8y ago
        I suppose not when it is rational to be paranoid.
        nurettin 8y ago
        Rational people are cautious, not paranoid.
  - canofbars 8y ago
    Opt out is when the tracking is on by default and the user has to take action to stop it. Opt in is off by default and action must be taken to enable it. What happens before the popup decides which one it is. If the user closes or ignores the message about tracking there should be none and there should have been none before the popup.
  - prepend 8y ago
    There’s a good book called Nudge by Richard Thaler (and someone else I can’t remember) where he goes into great detail on the default decision. Tl;dr; people usually accept the default so your prompts yield very different results.
- jsgo 8y ago
  In theory, it kind of is: as far as I’m aware, which I haven’t delved deeply into it so grain of salt time, but it doesn’t send data until you make that decision. And it isn’t like you have to dig for it: it’s presented to you explicitly. Yeah, it asks if you wish to opt out of “making the product better” or whatever the verbiage, but I don’t think it is going to confuse many. Especially within the target user demographic.
- nindalf 8y ago
  First, please let's draw a distinction between different kinds of tracking. We're smart enough to appreciate the naunces here. Some information is more valuable than others. * How many times you clicked Edit -> Paste vs Ctrl/Cmd + V. This is not personal information. It cannot be used in any way to identify you. * Your location/medical information. Guard this with your life if you must. Share it with literally no one. If it's uploaded somewhere, delete it asap. All our information falls on a spectrum between these two extremes. Let's please acknowledge that not all information is super sensitive, that it's ok to share information like the paste example. Second, this information can be useful, and can change the direction of the products we're building. For example, the Office team wanted to re-design the old menu bar interface to surface the features people were using the most. You know what people used the menu bar for the most? EDIT -> PASTE. You'd think everyone knows about Ctrl + V, but apparently not. The vast majority of the world used to click Edit, then click Paste. Knowing that users were doing this allowed the interface to be moulded to suit the needs of the silent, non shortcut using majority instead of HN power users - https://imgur.com/a/WLm4UJd https://imgur.com/a/WLm4UJd. Third, if you acknowledge that this information is useful, then it follows that it's only useful when it's opt-out. If it's opt-in and only 0.01% of your users opt-in, you can't make any reasonable conclusion from the data because it wouldn't be representative. If you tried to convince folks that no one uses keyboard shortcuts to paste based on this tiny data set, they'd laugh you out of the room. Collecting opt-in data in this case is almost useless. Fourth, products that collect this info become better. If you're ok with webapps collecting this but not native apps (like VS Code), then the consequence might be that web apps end up being much better than native apps. Whether you prefer that or not is moot, but personally I like having options. Let's not force native app makers to stop collecting non-identifying information when the downside is minimal/non-existent.
  - rum3 8y ago
    With machine learning they might only need to know your pasting habits and what function names you use most commonly, maybe a bit of information about how fast your type and this will be enough information to identify you based on your behaviour. Search engines are recording really detailed information as you type, as you browse other websites using their invasive trojan-like analytics. With this data you can probably identify anonymous users from their behaviour (even if the ipv4 address is "encrypted" hah). All it takes is for data from one company to end up at another company and I believe this happens very often. I think the problem is that you need less and less information to personally identify someone as you have more data. We are not intelligent enough to know what data is identifying or not so therefore the only option we have is to stop giving out our data.
- miaklesp 8y ago
  You can't have your cake and eat it too. Telemetry in this case helps in improvement of the product, it's good for you as end user. If you don't like, please switch to another editor. You paid zero but setting requirements how it should and how it shouldn't. Good luck with utter ugly but no tracking and "free" GNU Emacs with its ancient Lisp and garbage packages.
  - wolco 8y ago
    You are the product. You paid by using it and by giving back on github or by getting your boss to buy support. If you don't like that switch to a non-open source editor.
canofbars 8y ago
When I was using azure data studio the opt out was to visit a link, read the wiki page, open the settings.json file using your file manager and then paste in the tracking opt out key and restart the program. Or you could just close the message and be tracked. This is absolutely unacceptable opting out of tracking should be made exactly the same effort or less effort than opting in.

prepend 8y ago

Tracking should always be opt-in, not opt-out. I base this on expected user preference and trying to optimize for user happiness and functionality. I don’t think this is as true for non-OSS software where the purpose is likely more toward revenue generation than community and user functionality.

nurettin 8y ago
What is the crucial difference between a popup saying "would you like to opt in?" and popup saying "would you like to opt out?"
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  User perception of a default state.
- ComodoHacker 8y ago
  Opt-in telemetry likely won't serve it's purpose. Very few users change the defaults. To the point where you don't get enough data for useful insights.
  - naikrovek 8y ago
    That is exactly right. Almost no one would turn it on if it were off by defauly, which makes data collected by those few users strongly biased against general users and their usage patterns. (Meaning that the data you do collect will be useless.) This is literally the only reason that telemetry is almost always on by default. There is no illuminati secretly buying developers to learn your secrets via application telemetry, and it's laughable to think that's the case, in my mind.
    - rum3 8y ago
      If people turn it off when they have a choice, and only leave it on when they are unaware it exists then obviously there is a problem. I don't see how it is laughable to be paranoid in this case.
      - nurettin 8y ago
        isn't paranoia by definition irrational?
        rum3 8y ago
        I suppose not when it is rational to be paranoid.
        nurettin 8y ago
        Rational people are cautious, not paranoid.
- canofbars 8y ago
  Opt out is when the tracking is on by default and the user has to take action to stop it. Opt in is off by default and action must be taken to enable it. What happens before the popup decides which one it is. If the user closes or ignores the message about tracking there should be none and there should have been none before the popup.
- prepend 8y ago
  There’s a good book called Nudge by Richard Thaler (and someone else I can’t remember) where he goes into great detail on the default decision. Tl;dr; people usually accept the default so your prompts yield very different results.
jsgo 8y ago
In theory, it kind of is: as far as I’m aware, which I haven’t delved deeply into it so grain of salt time, but it doesn’t send data until you make that decision. And it isn’t like you have to dig for it: it’s presented to you explicitly. Yeah, it asks if you wish to opt out of “making the product better” or whatever the verbiage, but I don’t think it is going to confuse many. Especially within the target user demographic.
nindalf 8y ago
First, please let's draw a distinction between different kinds of tracking. We're smart enough to appreciate the naunces here. Some information is more valuable than others. * How many times you clicked Edit -> Paste vs Ctrl/Cmd + V. This is not personal information. It cannot be used in any way to identify you. * Your location/medical information. Guard this with your life if you must. Share it with literally no one. If it's uploaded somewhere, delete it asap. All our information falls on a spectrum between these two extremes. Let's please acknowledge that not all information is super sensitive, that it's ok to share information like the paste example. Second, this information can be useful, and can change the direction of the products we're building. For example, the Office team wanted to re-design the old menu bar interface to surface the features people were using the most. You know what people used the menu bar for the most? EDIT -> PASTE. You'd think everyone knows about Ctrl + V, but apparently not. The vast majority of the world used to click Edit, then click Paste. Knowing that users were doing this allowed the interface to be moulded to suit the needs of the silent, non shortcut using majority instead of HN power users - https://imgur.com/a/WLm4UJd https://imgur.com/a/WLm4UJd. Third, if you acknowledge that this information is useful, then it follows that it's only useful when it's opt-out. If it's opt-in and only 0.01% of your users opt-in, you can't make any reasonable conclusion from the data because it wouldn't be representative. If you tried to convince folks that no one uses keyboard shortcuts to paste based on this tiny data set, they'd laugh you out of the room. Collecting opt-in data in this case is almost useless. Fourth, products that collect this info become better. If you're ok with webapps collecting this but not native apps (like VS Code), then the consequence might be that web apps end up being much better than native apps. Whether you prefer that or not is moot, but personally I like having options. Let's not force native app makers to stop collecting non-identifying information when the downside is minimal/non-existent.
- rum3 8y ago
  With machine learning they might only need to know your pasting habits and what function names you use most commonly, maybe a bit of information about how fast your type and this will be enough information to identify you based on your behaviour. Search engines are recording really detailed information as you type, as you browse other websites using their invasive trojan-like analytics. With this data you can probably identify anonymous users from their behaviour (even if the ipv4 address is "encrypted" hah). All it takes is for data from one company to end up at another company and I believe this happens very often. I think the problem is that you need less and less information to personally identify someone as you have more data. We are not intelligent enough to know what data is identifying or not so therefore the only option we have is to stop giving out our data.
miaklesp 8y ago
You can't have your cake and eat it too. Telemetry in this case helps in improvement of the product, it's good for you as end user. If you don't like, please switch to another editor. You paid zero but setting requirements how it should and how it shouldn't. Good luck with utter ugly but no tracking and "free" GNU Emacs with its ancient Lisp and garbage packages.
- wolco 8y ago
  You are the product. You paid by using it and by giving back on github or by getting your boss to buy support. If you don't like that switch to a non-open source editor.

canofbars 8y ago

When I was using azure data studio the opt out was to visit a link, read the wiki page, open the settings.json file using your file manager and then paste in the tracking opt out key and restart the program. Or you could just close the message and be tracked. This is absolutely unacceptable opting out of tracking should be made exactly the same effort or less effort than opting in.