3 ms·

This is very uninteresting data to Google. They are interested in personal data that you can use to optimize targeted ads, not compiler cache miss counts from y

by dewey 4y ago

This is very uninteresting data to Google. They are interested in personal data that you can use to optimize targeted ads, not compiler cache miss counts from your local development workflow. The reasoning for not making this opt-in are in the blog post and I find them reasonable.

mlry 4y ago
Their reasons are centered on the low returns of opt-in (due to people regularly not changing defaults). They obviously fail to see that people might check their settings and do not want to opt in. And the reason for that is given right after that observation: people have been burned too often by companies and systems that slurp up ever more data way beyond what is necessary for the alleged purpose. Opt-Out is simply not acceptable.
orbital223 4y ago
> This is very uninteresting data to Google. It's not about how interesting the data is to them, it's about the hubris of believing they are entitled to every last bit of our data.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  Let's not forget the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
TeMPOraL 4y ago
If you think this data is not interesting to Google, I think you're not using your imagination enough. Even "compiler cache miss counts from your local development workflow" could be used as a signal to optimize ads for development tooling. Or hardware. In general, when looking at telemetry data, you can't stop at asking "what possible use would the org collecting it have for it right now, in their current business model". You need to also ask what use they could potentially have for it in the future, especially combined with other data they have access to. A year from now, or five years from now, or after a pivot, or after partnering with (or buying) a company in a different industry, or after leaking (or selling) it to third parties. When you ask these questions, I think you'll also conclude that enabling telemetry by default and pinky swears they're not doing anything naughy with it is not good enough. You may trust the people doing it now, but as experience shows, business priorities change, people in charge change, but the collected data remains.
- dewey 4y ago
  A set of static, anonymous metrics, updated _once_ a year from a tiny fraction of developers is not worth the effort to even ingest into some targeting system. There's many ways to get valuable data for ad targeting, this is not one of them. If they want to turn bad, they can just use the dependency proxy.golang.org / sum.golang.org that already exist for a long time. Or gather data on things running in Google Cloud. All of these would be unlikely, and bigger levers than gathering some data from a few Go developers.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    There are many other applications for data than just ad targeting. The pushback here may seem paranoid for the specifics of this particular case, but that's because it comes from a more generic and IMHO perfectly justified position of treating all telemetry as risky by default, and all attempts at making it opt-out as wrong, dangerous, and likely malicious. The arguments "for" are all based on assertions about this particular case at this particular point in time. The data to be collected is benign. Collecting it will translate to meaningful improvements being delivered faster. The people behind the project are all nice and reputable. And so on. In contrast, the arguments "against" cover the possible future evolution of the telemetry itself, as well as the project and the people behind it. The set of metrics and reporting frequency can change. The goals behind it can change. The nice people might turn naughty, or be replaced by scoundrels. The arguments "against" include, in particular, building the precedent and infrastructure. From that point of view, you saying: > set of static, anonymous metrics, updated _once_ a year from a tiny fraction of developers is not worth the effort to even ingest into some targeting system sounds to me like me saying "this browser extension, which code I audited myself, is only reading the account numbers and names from my banking page - it's really not worth anyone's effort to do anything naughty with it, so there's no reason I should be afraid of giving it full read and write permissions for the banking page, and no reason I shouldn't leave the 'auto-update' checkbox on".

by dewey 4y ago

mlry 4y ago

Their reasons are centered on the low returns of opt-in (due to people regularly not changing defaults). They obviously fail to see that people might check their settings and do not want to opt in. And the reason for that is given right after that observation: people have been burned too often by companies and systems that slurp up ever more data way beyond what is necessary for the alleged purpose. Opt-Out is simply not acceptable.

orbital223 4y ago

> This is very uninteresting data to Google. It's not about how interesting the data is to them, it's about the hubris of believing they are entitled to every last bit of our data.

deafpolygon 4y ago
Let's not forget the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

TeMPOraL 4y ago

If you think this data is not interesting to Google, I think you're not using your imagination enough. Even "compiler cache miss counts from your local development workflow" could be used as a signal to optimize ads for development tooling. Or hardware. In general, when looking at telemetry data, you can't stop at asking "what possible use would the org collecting it have for it right now, in their current business model". You need to also ask what use they could potentially have for it in the future, especially combined with other data they have access to. A year from now, or five years from now, or after a pivot, or after partnering with (or buying) a company in a different industry, or after leaking (or selling) it to third parties. When you ask these questions, I think you'll also conclude that enabling telemetry by default and pinky swears they're not doing anything naughy with it is not good enough. You may trust the people doing it now, but as experience shows, business priorities change, people in charge change, but the collected data remains.

dewey 4y ago
A set of static, anonymous metrics, updated _once_ a year from a tiny fraction of developers is not worth the effort to even ingest into some targeting system. There's many ways to get valuable data for ad targeting, this is not one of them. If they want to turn bad, they can just use the dependency proxy.golang.org / sum.golang.org that already exist for a long time. Or gather data on things running in Google Cloud. All of these would be unlikely, and bigger levers than gathering some data from a few Go developers.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  There are many other applications for data than just ad targeting. The pushback here may seem paranoid for the specifics of this particular case, but that's because it comes from a more generic and IMHO perfectly justified position of treating all telemetry as risky by default, and all attempts at making it opt-out as wrong, dangerous, and likely malicious. The arguments "for" are all based on assertions about this particular case at this particular point in time. The data to be collected is benign. Collecting it will translate to meaningful improvements being delivered faster. The people behind the project are all nice and reputable. And so on. In contrast, the arguments "against" cover the possible future evolution of the telemetry itself, as well as the project and the people behind it. The set of metrics and reporting frequency can change. The goals behind it can change. The nice people might turn naughty, or be replaced by scoundrels. The arguments "against" include, in particular, building the precedent and infrastructure. From that point of view, you saying: > set of static, anonymous metrics, updated _once_ a year from a tiny fraction of developers is not worth the effort to even ingest into some targeting system sounds to me like me saying "this browser extension, which code I audited myself, is only reading the account numbers and names from my banking page - it's really not worth anyone's effort to do anything naughty with it, so there's no reason I should be afraid of giving it full read and write permissions for the banking page, and no reason I shouldn't leave the 'auto-update' checkbox on".