[nitinreddy88]

@blub can you explain me how it's exactly "spying on you"?

There is difference between collecting information about how many people are using vs whether a particular person is using.

Collecting diagnostic information from windows application failures/how many failures etc are there ever since Windows 95 era.

Similarly, collecting information about how many people are using dotnet core build/test/publish is similar to how Google/Mozilla tracks how many users are running which version of their product and experience issues.

If Microsoft/Google/Mozilla or any other company uses that information to identify a specific person is "effectively spying on you". Until that's not there, the same functionality exists in almost every product. Just click bait article.

[blub]

Spyware is software collecting information about someone without their consent.

Doesn't have to be malicious, doesn't have to be what's legally defined as personal information. The fact that many companies are doing it doesn't make it less inappropriate.

Reputable companies will clearly inform users and ask for their confirmation. Then they respect their choice.

Disreputable companies such as MS or Google take without asking, use dark patterns to trick users, default to always on, reset privacy settings, etc.

[reitanqild]

As someone who has removed my fair share of spyware infections I'll say "easy now".

I think I'll be happy the day EU and American consumer protection agencies start looking closer into Googles business.

I'd also applaud even more visible information about what exactly gets collected and sent (the old gds "Read very carefully - this is not the usual yadda yadda" would be a good start).

However IMO we shouldn't call legitimate telemetry "spyware". I thing that is what you call "crying wolf".

[vetinari]

Mozilla asks you, whether you want to send the telemetry.

If you say no, it won't send anything.

No, the settings do not mysteriously reset themselves.

[j_s]

Firefox tracks users with Google Analytics in the add-on settings | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14753546

  "Someone submitted a PR to Mozilla to fix this, and the Mozilla devs closed it"

Impossible to opt-out until about 2 weeks ago.

[vetinari]

Come on, that was a bug in the new preferences pages.

The telemetry I was talking about is exactly the one, where you get a bar at the bottom during first launch. Try it, you will see it.

[j_s]

Perhaps this instance was an honest mistake.

The specifics of a custom deal with Google and the circling of the wagons (specifically opinions expressed by multiple Mozilla employees in an official capacity) prior to reversing course does not strengthen that case.

> If you say no, it won't send anything.

This simply wasn't true; I am glad that the implementation was fixed.