Canonical being silly again - Can this not be in Kubuntu, please?

[chimak111]

I'll opt-in or not opt-out. That's the least I can do to help the project.

[dequire]

As long as used as stated, I'll be fine with it. And I know the community will be watching like hawks as this rolls out and is administered down the line. Esp. for Canonical, who - as some have stated earlier - already messed up once in the past regarding privacy, although in a different context. I think it would lead ultimately to better hardware and software integration and a better underlying user experience. Also, they may just find out that not everyone likes Gnome 3!* To me, this is no different than the Steam hardware survey (also opt-outable) and far less invasive than the data collection and fingerprinting done by Firefox and Chrome.

For those of us who run Neon, by the way, you may recall the F.A.Q.:
"How many installs of KDE neon are there?
- We include the machine ID in version update requests in /etc/update-manager/meta-release and hope to have a website up shortly which shows figures on install numbers.
To remove install counting run
sed s,meta-release.*,meta-release, /etc/update-manager/meta-release.

This will be added as an option in the installer when we get a moment."

While only aggregating installed instances, I bet a lot of people do not realize this or forgot about it.

* http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-mos...-programs-are/ - KDE comes out #1 here, with Gnome 3 pretty far down the line. I still say Canonical messed up here...

[Bings]

That Mozilla does something is not indicative of something being a good decision. How long before we start reading articles of "Oh woops, someone configured this wrong and it was actually sending more data than we said it would"? or "Oh woops, the opt out option didn't work". Things go wrong with programs so why create the situation in the first place. Nobody is stop going to stop using a distro because it doesn't have a data collection facility like this but they are surely going to because it does.

KDE has planted it flag firmly in the corner of privacy https://vizzzion.org/blog/2017/09/privacy-software/ so it'll be sad one of the first thing a user sees when they install Kubuntu (or even Neon as it's ubuntu based) is an auto selected privacy collection option on install.

[oshunluvr]

More FUD. You can OPT OUT. It's Linux people, just OPT OUT.

[claydoh]

For those of us who run Neon, by the way, you may recall the F.A.Q.:
"How many installs of KDE neon are there?
- We include the machine ID in version update requests in /etc/update-manager/meta-release and hope to have a website up shortly which shows figures on install numbers.
To remove install counting run
sed s,meta-release.*,meta-release, /etc/update-manager/meta-release.

This will be added as an option in the installer when we get a moment."

While only aggregating installed instances, I bet a lot of people do not realize this or forgot about it.

I believe Suse do install tracking the same way.

[jglen490]

More FUD. You can OPT OUT. It's Linux people, just OPT OUT.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt? Perhaps. If Canonical wants to understand what of their supported products is being installed in the wild, that's fine. They MUST assert that no personal information will be gathered, even inadvertently. Other than the "no IP" statement, they have not said that. A user's IP is an important first step, but I'm quite certain that more then one individual puts in their actual personal info when installing a *ubuntu. Probably foolish, but Canonical does not need to exacerbate that fact - even inadvertently.

I'll say it again, it is Canonical's responsibility to not violate trust.

[TWPonKubuntu]

More FUD. You can OPT OUT. It's Linux people, just OPT OUT.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. All of the above.

With respect, we should not have to do this, "opt-out", in the first place.

I believe that Canonical should (ought to) take their customer's privacy as first priority.

That they do not is evidenced by this planned action.

As was said earlier, this is the kind of thing that Microsoft(r) does. Let's not go that direction. "Here Lie Dragons".

[GreyGeek]

Having an automatic opt in is taking advantage of noobs, especially if the opt out check box is not up front and well explained.
Ubuntu will be collecting the same data MS collects, for the same reasons, the value of demographic data to their bottom line. If it keeps Canonical in business morepiwer to them. I’ll just opt out if what they want is too intrusive, OR, if it turned out to be a spying tool for big brother

[kc1di]

I think an opt in instead of opt out would be the best way for them to go. I have no problem with them collecting general data about hardware. But am skeptical also.

[oshunluvr]

I guess the piece of this sort of discontent I have never understood is the part where people feel like they have the right to dictate the construction of a product they don't pay to use or contribute to. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon, blah blah blah all do this. Rarely are you given notice that it exists much less the option of opting out.

I think it would be more accurate to praise Canonical for leaving in the option to not participate and being fairly transparent about their intention to do this. For example, Samsung added directed advertising to their TVs, without notice, and in many cases, added this to TVs already in consumers's hands. If you opt-out, the "smart" features of the TV are disabled. I will exercise my rights by not buying a Samsung TV until and unless this policy changes, but that is the one and only "right" I have. Not withstanding illegal behavior of course, I certainly don't have the right to demand anything of Samsung or Canonical. They have no responsibility to anyone but themselves because they are private entities or answer to their stockholders, not their customers.

This just isn't "The End of Days" or even a pothole in the road, it's just a fork. Turn the direction you choose.

[jglen490]

You're right, it is good for them to announce their intent. And, yes, it is their business and their support probably does cost them $xxxxx every year. All I'm saying is that they have an obligation to respect their users - or chase them away, whatever makes sense. For me, if they can't make that declaration of respect, then it may be time to reconsider.

Never simply expect a for-profit business to do what is in the best interest of their customer, you as the customer will be disappointed. Expect that they will try to do minimal damage, and you may not be too disappointed.

[oshunluvr]

You're right, it is good for them to announce their intent. And, yes, it is their business and their support probably does cost them $xxxxx every year. All I'm saying is that they have an obligation to respect their users - or chase them away, whatever makes sense. For me, if they can't make that declaration of respect, then it may be time to reconsider.

Never simply expect a for-profit business to do what is in the best interest of their customer, you as the customer will be disappointed. Expect that they will try to do minimal damage, and you may not be too disappointed.

Exactly

[Teunis]

(I had started a tread about this in the 18.04 forum.)
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread.php/73071-Ubuntu-18-04-and-opt-out-privacy-concerns

This is certainly not FUD.

In my opinion the biggest problem is the opt-out method.
Not only respect for the user dictates you'd make this an opt-in, I believe in EU countries it is the law.

The list as mentioned that is made during installation is IMO not onerous, what I like about it is this will end up in a user accessible file and he/she can decide to send or not.

I don't see such an option for 'popcorn' and 'apport', this worries me.

Although they write about anonymous collection, this would only work if the data is not stored per user but only and immediately sorted into the large DB for all users.

If not it would look a lot like the browser fingerprinting that many companies do:
https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Canonical has to understand there are reasons I don't want Win10 on my computers.

[Bings]

I guess the piece of this sort of discontent I have never understood is the part where people feel like they have the right to dictate the construction of a product they don't pay to use or contribute to. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon, blah blah blah all do this. Rarely are you given notice that it exists much less the option of opting out.

I think it would be more accurate to praise Canonical for leaving in the option to not participate and being fairly transparent about their intention to do this. For example, Samsung added directed advertising to their TVs, without notice, and in many cases, added this to TVs already in consumers's hands. If you opt-out, the "smart" features of the TV are disabled. I will exercise my rights by not buying a Samsung TV until and unless this policy changes, but that is the one and only "right" I have. Not withstanding illegal behavior of course, I certainly don't have the right to demand anything of Samsung or Canonical. They have no responsibility to anyone but themselves because they are private entities or answer to their stockholders, not their customers.

This just isn't "The End of Days" or even a pothole in the road, it's just a fork. Turn the direction you choose.

I'm not dictating anything to anyone, I'm giving my opinion and saying I would not like this "feature" in Kubuntu. Or rather, I would not like this feature in my main OS which I like a lot. The bad behaviour of other companies (which I've also never liked) does not diminish my dislike of something that Canonical are intending on doing.

Kubuntu is offered willingly for free and this forum has been set up to discuss it. Unless I am missing something, maybe a sign which says "if you don't code for us STFU", I don't see how would you come to the conclusion to that it is somehow out of order me making this critique of something which isn't even in Kubuntu yet, if it will be at all.

[GreyGeek]

Dictating or not, I can express my opinion with as much emphasis as I can to help "whomever" understand what I, as a consumer, do not like and won't tolerate. If a car manufacturer started requiring a contract signature that forced me to buy a particular brand of gasoline at particular gas stations I would NOT be buying that car and I would tell them why up front. IF they hid that requirement in 30 pages of legalese a layman would not understand and then sent BSA agents to examine my gas tank and access my CC records .... sound familiar?