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Comment by tmkbry | Hacker News Reader

https://imgur.com/a/wii2zVT is what everybody gets when starting VSCode for the first time.

Yes. The title is against site guidelines ("Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.") and it's incorrect; there's nothing silent about it.

The title is clearly correct. When you get that message, you have already been silently opted in. You must then to read the instructions and opt yourself out.

I’d argue this isn’t enough. They should explicitly ask, especially when you’re using the application to handle sensitive material such as unreleased code.

It's user-hostile, business-unfriendly, and completely intentional.

Which information that VSCode sends as part of the telemetry are user- and business-hostile?

I was referring to the content of the notification dialog.

I agree the yes/no should be the question (always) and not any extra work to opt out.

That said, if usage data is the goal, then any personal info or content you work on being uploaded would be a critical bug, a bug of the kind that could just as (un)likely appear in any other part of the software regardless of whether telemetry is on. E.g the request to fetch extension listings could accidentally contain your info, or the git code could post your stuff suppose to go to a private repo to a public one through a bug.

I really don’t see why sensitive or personal info would be at risk with telemetry (of the acceptable kind ie feature use stats). If that is compromised by telemetry then it’s either a) a bug (see above) or b) they are deliberately being malware. And in that case - why even ask?

They should explicitly ask, especially when you’re using the application to handle sensitive material such as unreleased code.

Do you think that VSCode’s telemetry uploads your code to Microsoft?

If you have trade secrets, it is incumbent on you to appropriately review the privacy policies and settings of tools before you run them on a machine with sensitive info.

Except even if that was enough, people upgrading were just auto-opted back in (AFAICT). It definitely happened to me!

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