Any truth to this?
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Well the title is definitely a click bait, but itās true that the shit hit the fan in this case. Similar to the Freenode crap that just happened.
Now Iām waiting for the fork so that I can continue using that toolā¦
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Thereās zero reason for an open source project to be collecting any of the data they collect, and itās completely outside the norms of the community. The limitation on the age of the users is also a direct violation of the codeās license.
The part that should actually concern you is the bit on collecting data for law enforcement. Note that there are no limits at all on the type of data that they will collect if directed to by Russian law enforcement. Now, this leaves me with a lot of questions about how theyāve actually implemented the analytics toolkit, and how they have code updates set up to work. It is in theory possible that this is fine, but (having read many privacy policies professionally) that clause is not worded in the way that I would expect from an organization interested in putting any really effort into protecting user privacy.
The core of it, though, is that this entire policy and practice is out of line.
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Oh! Also, I realized that that policy doesnāt have an opt out process, which is required, nor do they have a subject access request and subject deletion request process. Because theyāre receiving crash dumps which can include abitrary parts of system memory, they donāt have a way of claiming that theyāre never receiving PII. As IP addresses are also PII under the GDPR, they are explicitly receiving them with the reports, even if they donāt store them long-term (and I doubt they purge server logs). IANAL, but this is not the privacy policy of an organization attempting to do anything other than cover itās ass.
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Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook treatment of private data is way worse than that, and everybody here is using several of their products.
I donāt say itās ideal, but all this seems like anti-russian propaganda to me.
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Also, they havenāt correctly managed the different categories of data. Data that the police request they collect is also data that they can sell to third parties, under the āpotential buyersā clause. Itās worth noting that on the social media side, the Russian government is incredibly aggressive around the data that it mandates companies collect. While there is not that I know of a law requiring specific categories of data be collected by non-social software, thereās a very easy avenue for them to collect and sell arbitrary data should they want to.
No, it really isnāt. I look at stuff like this for a living and this is entirely out of line, especially for an open source project.
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Nope.
Not quite all the way thanks to the ipad and my email, but once I figure out what to do about them Iāll be completely severed from big tech.
Edit: thereās been a few threads where nauts have been aiming for the same thing.
From the bottom of the linked article:
ā Update: Muse Groupsās plans appear to be evolving ā a May 17 Tech Radar article says that the company reversed their initial plans for data collection, but their Privacy Policy was updated July 2,.ā
Seems strange about the PG13 thing though, lots of schools media depts use it, ironic that they appear to not know this.
This bitās deep. Thanks for the heads up.
āNot all 'nautsā. Ok, change āeverybodyā for āmost peopleā, but I think the idea is clear.
So they reversed their reversal? Or one part of the company didnāt get the memo?
I donāt knowā¦ The whole thing looked suspicious to me. How can a company āacquireā an open-source project? Did they hire all the core maintainers? Who did they pay for the name/logo/brand?
Excuse me, Iām just rambling my uncertainties out loudā¦
This is the position we call privacy nihilism in the industry, and itās pretty unfounded. Yes, there are absolutely real problems with many companyās products, but e.g. even with Apple and Windows, you can opt out of this kind of usage-sharing. There are both legal structures that are standard across the industry, and while there are companies like this that play fast and loose and we absolutely need stronger protections, theyāre much better than nothing. There are also many things you can do, like using ad-blockers (I recommend uBlock Origin) that will make a real difference, and theyāre not really that time-consuming.
Giving up and assuming thereās nothing you can do helps to normalize abuses by companies like this that (seem to be trying to) skirt the laws around privacy, and makes it harder for civil society organizations to push for stronger privacy and human rights protections.
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The āPG-13ā part is almost certainly because minors are not able to agree with the terms of the privacy policy, because they are not considered able to make such decisions in some European jurisdictions. So the company canāt collect data from users under 13. So they just say āyou canāt use itā.
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They should really have an opt-out for any data collection, so they donāt collect it from minors or from people who want to opt out. Then children under 13 could use it again.
Yup, thatās US law.
Part of whatās weird about this is that theyāve got a hodge-podge of restrictions instead of clearly spelling out what rights and restrictions apply in which jurisdictions. Honestly, thereās a pretty good chance that theyāre just getting terrible legal advice and are deeply confused about the whole thing, although it sounds like theyāve maybe not been the best stewards of the ecosystem in other ways since they took over.
The y-combinator/HackerNews thread on this subject:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27727150
Someoneās already forked it and taken out a load of the networking code, and made their version available. Apparently it was disable-able by environment flags.
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AGE=12 /usr/bin/audacity
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I only use audacity from my Linux distroās package management system, so Iāll just make sure the distro builds it without the telemetry stuff enabled. I bet distro packages are already looking into it
I didnāt say there is nothing to do. I use Linux and free software most of the time, opt-out of most usage tracking options, use an ad-blocker, etc.
Iām well informed, and I have even trained local activists in anti-tracking measures.
But, you shouldnāt have to be a tech savy in order to be protected from tracking by big (and small) companies.