Comment by 🦂 zzo38
My own FOSS projects do not have telemetry (and do not even have an option to enable it if you want it), and I will also try to disable or avoid other software that does. I do keep server logs but only of what would be sent to the server anyways, not by trying to force the client to send additional stuff.
2025-03-29 · 1 year ago
3 Later Comments ↓
🚀 lanterm · 2025-03-30 at 12:43:
My opinion is ad tech is largely how it happened. How would one know which ad campaign to pay out on if you don't know which impression on one platform led a user to purchase a product on another one? This promised insight encourages businesses to keep tracking scripts and telemetry on by default. It's so pervasive it feels impossible to maintain some kind of baseline of online privacy, which is kind of nuts to me - we're online in the most sensitive or private of situations in our lives, yet it's become one of the places we're observed and tracked the most.
I think someone who comes up with some ethical advertising that doesn't involve this pervasive tracking should win a Nobel peace prize.
👻 darkghost · 2025-03-30 at 13:44:
You will find me trashing the ad industry more than any other. They're the least ethical lot you'll find.
🌧️ deafpolygon · 2025-08-09 at 10:35:
it's called boiling the frog. also, during the time that it would have been called spyware - a good portion of internet users were more educated, due to the internet being more accessible to colleges, military, etc.
Original Post
Telemetry — There was a time when telemetry, that is on by default, would have been called spyware. Now it’s business as usual and you are a luddite if you don’t like it. Even many FOSS projects seem to be fine with it. I wonder how that happened.