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by JohnFen 588 days ago
It's more common with big companies, but it's not at all unique to them.
2 comments

Of course, and there are bad actors in every area. I haven't stopped grocery shopping in my city just because I know Lidl and Billa treat their employees terribly.

If you don't want to provide telemetry information to the devs of the software you are using, that's your right -- do it, prevent it.

I simply don't think that "opt-out by default" is such a heinous crime. Some devs really do land in situations where they are lost on which features are worth improving or winding down (or even removing). A lot of teams have limited dev time / energy budgets so it pays off for them to know where to pay attention IMO.

> I simply don't think that "opt-out by default" is such a heinous crime.

I object to it because it's a cover-your-ass approach to avoiding getting consent.

As a dev, I fully understand the value of this data. But that's irrelevant to the point, to be honest. That a thing provides value to devs is not an argument that the thing is justifiable.

Again, I don't actually disagree with you on your premise. As a user I found it spooky myself.

I am simply leaning a bit more to the dev point of view is all.

That it should be fiercely discussed whether you need telemetry to improve your product is also true but again, in some cases (in my practice) it was unavoidable. I'd agree that the question whether there should be telemetry at all is one that should be posed much more often that it is right now.

In fact big companies worry about gdpr fines and have extensive data privacy review people. I work with them in my job at a major enterprise.

It's often startups that just do whatever because the only thing they care about is showing value to investors and avoid getting canned next month.