Homebrew betrayed us all to Google

Homebrew betrayed us all to Google(chr4.org)

49 points by chr4 10 years ago | 19 comments

detaro 10 years ago |

HN discussion about the change: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566720

evmar 10 years ago |

"You should not track your users. If you need anonymous data, you should ask your users first."

Now I'm imagining a website where when when you first visit it, you get a popup like "for capacity planning purposes, this website would like to record that you visited [yes] [no]". I wonder if this author would like such a website?

chr4 10 years ago | |

This sounds like the EU proposal for cookies :)

The article was targeting another scenario: An installed app that tracks users. Obviously, for websites this would rather translate to: Do not track your users, especially not using 3rd party services.

chr4 10 years ago | |

I hope you realize, that "opt-out" doesn't work without tracking the user either. Which kinda reduces the point of not wanting to be tracked to absurdity.

fabrik42 10 years ago | |

This is exactly how the EU cookie law works.

dingaling 10 years ago | | |

Technically the EU cookie law does not require notification for cookies associated with the basic functions of the site.

All those annoying prompts are covering the use of nonfunctional aspects such as tracking.

spacemanmatt 10 years ago |

TL/DR: Author wishes Homebrew's analytics were opt-in.

barisser 10 years ago |

I've been betrayed enough times on the Internet not to be surprised.

jonknee 10 years ago |

It seems reasonable to want some analytics and it looks like they did a good job from a privacy standpoint (random IDs that you can even change if you wish). They even allow you to opt-out. There is simply no betrayal here.

Esau 10 years ago | |

Opt-In by default is wrong, regardless of the intention.

jonknee 10 years ago | | |

It very much depends on the thing you're opting into or out of. For example, a better default for organ donation has saved lots of lives: https://sparq.stanford.edu/solutions/opt-out-policies-increa...

chr4 10 years ago | |

The point is, opt-out is the problem.

jonknee 10 years ago | | |

Why is that a problem? If you are the type of person that is paranoid about anonymous usage data you will be very well versed in opting out of things because that's pretty much the standard. Homebrew is even notifying users that they are starting analytics and that you can opt-out. Here's what I just got on my terminal:

   ==> Homebrew has enabled anonymous aggregate user behaviour analytics
   Read the analytics documentation (and how to opt-out) here:
     https://git.io/brew-analytics

The vast majority of users want Homebrew to work better and are fine with the developers knowing which packages are the most popular. This is not "betrayal".

nanodano 10 years ago |

X "betrayed us all to Google"

Is this your reaction to every website that has Google Analytics too? Write a blog post about how it should be opt-in and how it's a betrayal?

chr4 10 years ago | |

It is. And it is a huge problem. It's easier to block this using an adblocking plugin, though.

nanodano 10 years ago | | |

Have you ever looked at Google Analytics information? They don't even give you individual IP addresses or anything like that. They actually do a GOOD job of anonymyzing data like that. You could track more information if you did it by yourself without Google Analytics. It's not really a big deal for someone to track what languages and what browsers people use on their sites.