Audio editor Audacity denies spyware accusation

In an audio program one often uses a set of filter by default, which aren't that important.

Important is the filter I use once in a while and in that specific situation is making a huge difference.

Unqualified usage counters lead t wrong conclusions.

Someone I know well created one such, based on a common reporting template of a major Free Software project, after realising that the template itself was based on information readily obtained from the system. Fleshing that out a bit resulted in an automatic syste self-documentation tool. They'd introduced it to the support group at one former company, and informal feedback several years later was that this was the principle diagnostic utility for the team. There was no ongoing telemetry, merely a "here's the script, run it and send us the output". (If necessary, the output could have been automatically emailed or transmitted by other means.)

There are now several of these, the "About This Mac" utility on OSX, as well as several for Linux, of which I'm aware.

No, they're not app-specific diagnostics, but precisely the same principles apply.

"Security is a process, not a product" applies equally to privacy, itself a domain of security.

A developer of an email client wishes to use telemetry to figure out which IMAP features are most worth supporting. They could, say, log every IMAP server you connect to. Or instead run an IMAP ID command and log the response. Or they could ship the CAPABILITIES response verbatim. Or maybe they could carefully parse the CAPABILITIES response and only report the existence of specific tokens (which may include capabilities not yet supported by the client) back as telemetry.

There's a gradient of scuminess going on there, all to (purportedly) track the same information. What matters for privacy concerns is the choice of data being tracked; how it's actually collected and transmitted is comparatively unimportant. So what you really want is someone to approve the choice of what to track, which isn't what a third-party library or service is likely to give you. And you don't need to necessarily route it through a third party; if we're talking about open-source software, the data that's being tracked is public knowledge--an organization that reviews telemetry and gives a stamp of approval would be sufficient to achieve the same ends.

But even then, I suspect many people are going to have different ideas as to what data is safe to track. Even the list I gave for tracking IMAP, I fully expect that there exists sharp disagreement about whether some of those entries would be okay for telemetry purposes.

Edit: >but if you want UX improvements to Audacity

You insinuated that the only way to improve the UX (your comments insinuates that it needs improving) is to use telemetry

(I mean the 1980s, just to stave off any attempts to send me back in time to observe computing in the 18th century).

Qualitative (usability testing and other observation methods up to and including ethnography) can give us the why (users seem to do what we didn't expect).

Modern UX design can make use of both modes of user research such that they support each other. I.e discover the what via quant and understand it better via qual, to land at a solution.

Or discover both why and what via qual, and then determine severity (how many users get stuck in a given way) via quant.

But of course, there needs to be explicit consent such that trust is not breached, no matter how inconsequential the data collected is considered to be. The decision belongs to users.

Apparently there wasn't consent.

Edit: Ideally, should anonymised usage data in OSS projects be public? Such that we can see the data and design decisions made based on it? Perhaps this would generate more of the trust that was desired here.

Really? That's a weak argument if ever I heard one.

Perhaps it's time to take a stand and say "no more!"

What's to stop them adding in something else later that "accidentally" grabs IP addresses, and sends them "accidentally" to their third party analytics company who doesn't give a shit about your privacy. That company then takes their other data, joins it all together and adds to the picture of you that you never asked them to create!

When you open this door, there is no closing it.

The argument comes down to this (for me, at least): You got the software to this point without telemetry. Why do you need it now? Is the application all of a sudden unusable?

Edit: I forgot! They already take your IP address but my point still stands!

They have done everything wrong.

banning use of the for under 13s not a good move IMHO.

They have a load of money and want to know how audacity is used?

How about just ask?

The right time to ask if anyone will be using a specific portion of the app is when the feature is being proposed, not after it's been implemented and released. Replacing discovery up front with post-release telemetry is a sure way to lose money.

Conversely, if you're not making that mistake, then you don't really need telemetry to tell you what you already know.

So clearly they think they need them for some reason.

You're really bending over backwards here.

No. I do not.

They now have the ability to take any data they want "accidentally". They can now give that data to whomever they want (it's in their Ts and Cs I believe) and even if you switch it off, what's to say they won't turn it on? What's stopping them selling the product to another company that now has a bunch of data.

It has not been needed up to this point. The product works. It works well. Why can't they send surveys? Or ask in a forum? Or ask users to download their alpha/beta/nightly version with the telemetry in it?

Once they get that data, they may want more!