Not convinced. By your logic, an nginx log with your IP in it is a similarly egregious and unethical privacy violation.

If you're going to commit to "all forms of tracking are bad no matter what" I'm going to need stronger evidence than a link a page on the UN's website.

Saving that IP to the webserver's log is rather necessary for it to function, whereas these detailed records of user behaviour can almost never be.

Just because someone uses an application, does not mean you "own" them and have a moral right to freely collect and do whatever you want with records of their behaviour. Also it's just weird.

Please explain how webserver logging is "necessary for it to function".

Perhaps you'll find this book interesting: Networking All-in-One For Dummies https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0921K9YTS

So I'll take that as you can't demonstrate it?

Interestingly, I started up an Nginx server and piped the logs to /dev/null and it worked just fine!!

Wow, turns out those logs weren't necessary at all. And by your standard, where tracking that isn't necessary for the website to function is unethical, that makes every single person running Nginx in its default configuration bad and participating in unethical tracking of users!

Because it doesn't seem like I'm going to get a response to this, I'll walk down the rest of the logic for completeness's sake.

I think we can both agree that "all unnecessary tracking is unethical" doesn't make sense and leads to insane conclusions like "all Nginx users with IP addresses in their logs are participating in unethical tracking".

So we're back to square one, where someone needs to demonstrate this type of tracking is actually unethical. So far we've got "all tracking ever is unethical" and "all tracking not necessary for function is unethical", but both of those seem to be dead ends.

I think the argument is a bit nuanced, but I see where the "tracking is bad" comes from.

I think everyone would agree that it would be very bad if eg. an instant messaging app logged message contents and allowed devs to look at anyones messages.

On the other hand, most people would not object to an app that sends an anonymous weekly counter of which buttons were tapped.

Anything between these two takes a lot of care and deliberation; on the one hand devs want useable data, on the other hand users don't want sensitive data tracked.

But it takes a lot of effort to make sure you don't accidentally log sensitive data. Eg. if you log spell check suggestions (to determine common typos) you might probably be able to use that data to reconstruct message contents.

Now, as a user, do I trust random companies to get this right? Do I trust random companies to not accidentally log sensitive data?

And the answer to that question is NO, I don't trust them. So if you ask me if I would consent to activity tracking, I would almost definitely say no, even though I don't think anything is wrong with anonymous usage tracking -- I just don't trust every company to get this right, so I'd rather have them not track anything at all.

> On the other hand, most people would not object to an app that sends an anonymous weekly counter of which buttons were tapped.

Considering how often companies misuse even this data...

Of course I agree there is nuance, but that's the point I'm trying to make. So far every argument I've seen against it in this thread is along the lines of "all tracking is bad" or "[overly broad category of tracking] is bad". Nobody seems to be willing to substantiate the more nuanced claim of why this specific type of tracking is bad.

For the record, I agree that this type of tracking should require consent (or at least be able to be turned off).

The following is meant as constructive feedback, and I hope you will take it as such even if it happens you disagree:

Your comments here consistently come across as highly adversarial: Assumptions and conclusions are liberally asserted, every sentence only attacks, there is no room for nuance, and attempts to find common ground are either mistaken for a new enemy assault or remain unrecognised entirely.

This makes for an uninviting and frustrating conversation, which is a real shame because you are clearly not a stupid person.

Admittedly my previous comment was not very constructive either. An unfortunate outing of my frustrations at the time.

Again, I post this with genuinely positive intent, and hope that when we next cross paths it might lead to a more constructive and enjoyable talk!

In this spirit, I have some constructive criticism for you. Comments like this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33528012) are so vague I am forced to make assumptions about what you're trying to say.

You post an extremely vague comment, I try to muster a response by making some assumptions about what you're trying to say. You post something that I think is obviously wrong, but I ask for an explanation just in case I am wrong or misunderstanding you, and you post this:

> Perhaps you'll find this book interesting: Networking All-in-One For Dummies https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0921K9YTS

I'll admit my comments were somewhat aggressive, but up until this comment (which, for the record, has changed my mind on this) you seemed to be participating in blatant bad faith.

If you want people to understand the nuance in your position, you have to actually say it, not just provide a random link to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Your original comment seemed to be genuinely making the claim that 'all forms of tracking are bad because they are a privacy violation'. Maybe that's not what you meant, but I have to make assumptions about what you're trying to say when you don't actually say it and leave me to interpret what your quote and link are meant to say.

Also, for the record, I still disagree this type of tracking is unethical.

I'd love to hear the nuanced version of the argument why it's bad, maybe I'd be convinced.

You're taking a full black-or-white approach, which isn't helpful. Yes, an nginx log contains personal data (which is why a GDPR-compliant nginx log obfuscates the IP, absent of user consent). But tracking user interactions is much more invasive, which is why the parent posters complained about it.

I'm not taking a black/white approach, as a matter of fact I'm the one pointing out that doesn't make sense.

I asked for reasons for why this tracking is bad, and I got what basically amounts to "all tracking ever is bad", and thus I'm explaining why that "all tracking is black" approach doesn't work.

I think the argument here is that tracking how users interact with an app isn’t necessarily private information