General Dev>Ethics & Privacy

Console Do Not Track

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Console Do Not Track

A proposed unified standard for opting out of telemetry for TUI/console apps.

Gatsby has GATSBY_TELEMETRY_DISABLED. Homebrew has HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS. Syncthing has STNOUPGRADE, a config file setting for disabling crash reporting, and a GUI prompt for usage reporting. Google Cloud SDK CLI tools has gcloud config set disable_usage_reporting true. .NET Core has DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT. Netlify’s CLI has netlify --telemetry-disable. The AWS Serverless Application Model CLI has SAM_CLI_TELEMETRY=0. The Microsoft Azure CLI has AZURE_CORE_COLLECT_TELEMETRY=0. You get the idea.

This is a proposal for a single, standard environment variable that plainly and unambiguously expresses LACK OF CONSENT by a user of that software to any of the following:

  • ad tracking
  • usage reporting, anonymous or not
  • automatic update phone-home
  • crash reporting
  • non-essential-to-functionality requests of any kind to the creator of the software or other tracking services

We just want local software, and by providing it to us you are not entitled to our usage, our crashes, or our IP addresses.

Read in full here:

https://consoledonottrack.com/

This thread was posted by one of our members via one of our news source trackers.

8 comments
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Most Liked

AstonJ

AstonJ

This really should be added to GDPR laws - where it is off by default and any software or tool has to ask specifically if they can track in any shape or form.

Anyway, for those wanting the homebrew command:

export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1
2
Post #3
dimitarvp

dimitarvp

Have we learned nothing from history?

DNT ended up being used as an additional vector for tracking! :grin: Because that’s one more header that your browser sends so it automatically becomes one more tracking data point.

Opt-out mechanics for personal info leaks will NEVER work. If you don’t trust a program, run it from inside a container where you have strictly approved network connections to the minimum amount of network hosts that the program needs in order to be able to do its job.

2
Post #4
dimitarvp

dimitarvp

Firefox integrated Pocket inside of it despite its community kicking and screaming (and Pocket having very sketchy privacy agreement) so truthfully, Mozilla have lost my vote of confidence a while ago.

Plus their main source of income – and I mean by a huge margin – is Google.

How privacy-friendly are they, like really how much?

2
Post #6

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