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popularity-contest comes from Debian. They introduced it quite a while ago as a way to help prioritise maintenance work etc.

• notRobot 6y ago
  I don't know about Ubuntu, but while installing Debian it makes it very clear what popularity-contest does and asks the user for explicit consent. The default option is "I do not wish to participate", so if someone isn't paying attention during the install process and just hits 'Enter', their privacy remains intact. This, IMO, is the perfect way to do telemetry.
  • lewiscollard 6y ago
    On Ubuntu you still have to explicitly enable it - and unless I missed something in my last couple of Ubuntu installs you are never prompted to enable it during installation. If you want to opt in, you have to do a dpkg-reconfigure and even then the default is still "No". This is not privacy-hostile in any meaningful way.
    • nitrogen 6y ago
      Is the hubbub about popularity contest or about the Snap store?
      • Shared404 6y ago
        It's about popcon, except for the people who didn't read the article.
  • Twirrim 6y ago
    The default in Ubuntu is to ask you at install time if you want it installed / enabled or not, for about as long as I remember, and I've been using Ubuntu for since ~5.04ish days.