"It should be fairly obvious to any programmer why they're collecting this information" - It's also fairly obvious to any programmer how this can be abused.
"The other thing is, Github is doing this in aggregate, and de-personalised." - THEY SAY.
"What's the business case? How exactly would it make more people pony up money for Github subscription?" - Companies can and do use any information gained about you to build a profile about you. They use this profile to do things like target you ads as well as sell your profile to other companies.
"People seem to think there's some grand Illumati global conspiracy going on." - No we don't, this is about basic privacy best practices.
"If it makes them money, they'll probably do it." - Exactly.
"There needs to be a business case." - There is always a business case. "Business Case" is an abstract concept.
"Now, I draw the line at the law" - The law is an enormous grey area. Essentially you haven't drawn a line. What you've argued is against identity theft and violent threats, not privacy protection.
"But if they're operating within the bounds of the law" - In a democratic society, these things are for us - the society - to decide and change. If you don't agree with the bounds of the law then it is your duty to act accordingly. Arguments like, "as long as it's not breaking the law" have very little use in a democracy.
"government is a completely different kettle of fish" - The government can secretly subpoena these companies for any information.
"companies are pretty easy to see through" - That makes no sense. I get what you're saying, they're trying to make money. There is no one size fits all strategy for making money and businesses do what some people consider "the wrong thing" all the time in effort to just make money.
-----------------------------------------------
People here are concerned about basic privacy best practices, not companies making money or governments spying. No one here is worried about some grand conspiracy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting software that is running on your own personal machine to send statistics about you to a third party whether they are purported to be anonymous or not. It's unfortunate that the societal norm is to turn a blind eye to these basic best practices, but it doesn't mean that those of us that still respect them should too.
The concept is this: Trusting closed source software is not something I want to do.
Not: Github is going to fuck me in the ass if I let them see my usage statistics.
"The other thing is, Github is doing this in aggregate, and de-personalised." - THEY SAY.
"What's the business case? How exactly would it make more people pony up money for Github subscription?" - Companies can and do use any information gained about you to build a profile about you. They use this profile to do things like target you ads as well as sell your profile to other companies.
"People seem to think there's some grand Illumati global conspiracy going on." - No we don't, this is about basic privacy best practices.
"If it makes them money, they'll probably do it." - Exactly.
"There needs to be a business case." - There is always a business case. "Business Case" is an abstract concept.
"Now, I draw the line at the law" - The law is an enormous grey area. Essentially you haven't drawn a line. What you've argued is against identity theft and violent threats, not privacy protection.
"But if they're operating within the bounds of the law" - In a democratic society, these things are for us - the society - to decide and change. If you don't agree with the bounds of the law then it is your duty to act accordingly. Arguments like, "as long as it's not breaking the law" have very little use in a democracy.
"government is a completely different kettle of fish" - The government can secretly subpoena these companies for any information.
"companies are pretty easy to see through" - That makes no sense. I get what you're saying, they're trying to make money. There is no one size fits all strategy for making money and businesses do what some people consider "the wrong thing" all the time in effort to just make money.
-----------------------------------------------
People here are concerned about basic privacy best practices, not companies making money or governments spying. No one here is worried about some grand conspiracy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting software that is running on your own personal machine to send statistics about you to a third party whether they are purported to be anonymous or not. It's unfortunate that the societal norm is to turn a blind eye to these basic best practices, but it doesn't mean that those of us that still respect them should too.
The concept is this: Trusting closed source software is not something I want to do.
Not: Github is going to fuck me in the ass if I let them see my usage statistics.