5 ms·

> telemetry is a good thing It is good only if it is "opt in". But in the wild we see that lot of software doesn't even provide an opt out and doesn't warn abo

> telemetry is a good thing It is good only if it is "opt in". But in the wild we see that lot of software doesn't even provide an opt out and doesn't warn about telemetry when installing or starting a program. If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage?

kristiandupont 4y ago
>It is good only if it is "opt in" Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. >If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? Maybe because they feel that it's not that big a deal. They could also "disclose" that the app uses X amount of harddisk space or memory, or that it was built by developers who are running Windows as their primary OS. That might be a deal breaker to some, but most people probably don't care.
- microtonal 4y ago
  Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. IANAL, but if you make the product available in the EU, you are required to make telemetry opt-in if there is personally identifiable information, or you'll violate the GDPR. Note that according to interpretations of various EU bodies, PII also means information that could be correlated to persons, like randomly generated identifiers (not just obviously PII information like an e-mail address or IP address).
  - eterevsky 4y ago
    If this weren't legal I doubt it would've been distributed the way it is.
    - microtonal 4y ago
      I think that is somewhat naive. The general approach of big tech has been: let's just break the rules until we get a slap on the wrist. It's not like privacy authorities are going to charge them with 4% of the annual turnover the first time. Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population.
      - eterevsky 4y ago
        As someone working in big tech, this is very far from truth. In any questionable case there are endless legal and privacy reviews that catch 99% of possible transgressions. What you see is the 1% that slipped through this process. > Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population. That's exactly the reason why MS would be on the safe side and not break any laws in this case. They could be a bit more daring if it benefitted them, but in this case there's literally no benefit except improving the software that they are giving out for free.
judge2020 4y ago
> why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? Looks like it’s disclosed in detail; https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry
cercatrova 4y ago
Opt in telemetry is near useless. The default case effect is very strong, as seen in the book Nudge.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  That something is hard to do ethically while still getting the benefit isn't an excuse to ignore the ethical issue.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    That's why I eschew the ethical aspect. And well, improving a product is ethical, it depends on which ethical philosophy you subscribe to.
eterevsky 4y ago
> If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? In my experience it's usually very prominently disclosed. In case of VSCode it's literally the 2nd section in their License Agreement, not to mention help pages, highly visible settings etc.
- digisign 4y ago
  It's probably the suits that don't want it actionably disclosed rather than developers. And we know MS has been caught several times disregarding consent and engaging in other dark patterns.

kristiandupont 4y ago

>It is good only if it is "opt in" Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. >If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? Maybe because they feel that it's not that big a deal. They could also "disclose" that the app uses X amount of harddisk space or memory, or that it was built by developers who are running Windows as their primary OS. That might be a deal breaker to some, but most people probably don't care.

microtonal 4y ago
Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. IANAL, but if you make the product available in the EU, you are required to make telemetry opt-in if there is personally identifiable information, or you'll violate the GDPR. Note that according to interpretations of various EU bodies, PII also means information that could be correlated to persons, like randomly generated identifiers (not just obviously PII information like an e-mail address or IP address).
- eterevsky 4y ago
  If this weren't legal I doubt it would've been distributed the way it is.
  - microtonal 4y ago
    I think that is somewhat naive. The general approach of big tech has been: let's just break the rules until we get a slap on the wrist. It's not like privacy authorities are going to charge them with 4% of the annual turnover the first time. Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population.
    - eterevsky 4y ago
      As someone working in big tech, this is very far from truth. In any questionable case there are endless legal and privacy reviews that catch 99% of possible transgressions. What you see is the 1% that slipped through this process. > Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population. That's exactly the reason why MS would be on the safe side and not break any laws in this case. They could be a bit more daring if it benefitted them, but in this case there's literally no benefit except improving the software that they are giving out for free.

judge2020 4y ago

> why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? Looks like it’s disclosed in detail; https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry

cercatrova 4y ago

Opt in telemetry is near useless. The default case effect is very strong, as seen in the book Nudge.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
That something is hard to do ethically while still getting the benefit isn't an excuse to ignore the ethical issue.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  That's why I eschew the ethical aspect. And well, improving a product is ethical, it depends on which ethical philosophy you subscribe to.

eterevsky 4y ago

> If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? In my experience it's usually very prominently disclosed. In case of VSCode it's literally the 2nd section in their License Agreement, not to mention help pages, highly visible settings etc.

digisign 4y ago
It's probably the suits that don't want it actionably disclosed rather than developers. And we know MS has been caught several times disregarding consent and engaging in other dark patterns.