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A comment on Brew commands send data to Google Analytics. Parent comment

Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by CJefferson on Friday November 25, 2016 @05:49AM (#13035789)
The problem with this is, do you want every program you ever use, to start prompting you with a series of questions about various opt-in / opt-out questions? I get annoyed enough that gnu parallel keeps asking me about citing it, and that's one program.

    Bash would like to record analyitics. y/n/more information
    > y
    > ls *.c
    ls would like to record information about how you use it.
    y/n/more information.
    > y
    file1.c file2.c file3.c
    > grep 'string' *.c
    grep would like to record some information about your
    usage. y/n/more information.
    > y
    file1.c:8: string
    > vim file1.c
    vim would like to record information usage, to help
    improve vim in future. y/n/more information.
    > y
    The 'C' package in vim would like to ...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by Nursie on Friday November 25, 2016 @06:49AM (#13036041)
No, I want every program I ever use not to leak data about me all over the internet.

I'm amazed we're even having this discussion

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by TeMPOraL on Friday November 25, 2016 @11:38AM (#13037871)
If I saw something like that, I'd format my drive and install another OS.

The very idea of your shell or file listing program sending analytics to the mothership is ridiculous. They shouldn't be even talking to a network directly. They have a set of well-defined tasks, and spying on you is not one of them.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by tunap on Friday November 25, 2016 @11:38AM (#13037875)
"The problem with this is, do you want every program you ever use, to start prompting you with a series of questions about various opt-in / opt-out questions?"

Simple answer, Yes.

It would lead to conversations about the elephant in the room. It also alleviates the assumption I trust all providers(comprehend the EULA/ToS) and puts their actions under scrutiny. If more people realized what data is collected and by whom for whom they could make an informed, cost/benefit choice. Other useful results are, what is the applicability of that data to the project, what characteristics define the 'Trusted Partners' that data is shared with and, possibly, inject some restraint into the collectors' decisions of what to collect.

edit: removed unintended paste fragment

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by sangnoir on Friday November 25, 2016 @11:03AM (#13037605)
Lol, reminds me of what macOS did[1] to me after a recent upgrade:

  $ git pull

  (long wait)

  ^c

  $ git pull

  (got distracted and had to leave keyboard for a bit)

  Can't execute program until you accept xcode license
I couldn't believe it.

1. paraphrasing the words

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by codedokode on Friday November 25, 2016 @05:57AM (#13035821)
Opt-in can be implemented other way without questions. For example, user could set an environment variable or type a command.
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Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by CJefferson on Friday November 25, 2016 @06:36AM (#13035975)
Then we hit the problem that if we don't push that request at users, probably a tiny fraction will turn it on.

Worse, that fraction will be the statistically unusual people who bother reading and finding such options, meaning we can't derive any statistically useful results about the user base from them!

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Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by TeMPOraL on Friday November 25, 2016 @11:35AM (#13037852)
Frankly, that's your problem. I don't see even a true desire to make the software better as a legitimate reason to exfiltrate data from people without asking.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by codedokode on Friday November 25, 2016 @07:01AM (#13036096)
Maybe you should ask them better. For example you could ask for help on the home page of your project or in the beginning of a tutorial. Or maybe they do not want to paticipate. Is it right to ignore this and turn analytics on by default?
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Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by lewiseason on Friday November 25, 2016 @08:23AM (#13036527)
The Debian installer gets this right: it prompts you during the install whether it can collect information about installed packages for popcon[1]

[1] http://popcon.debian.org/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by majewsky on Saturday November 26, 2016 @08:01AM (#13043285)
I never understood why popcon is necessary. Couldn't you achieve about the same result by just counting downloads on the package mirrors?
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Re:Brew commands send data to Google Analytics by smonff on Friday November 25, 2016 @06:13AM (#13035885)
Oh, no!
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