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Comment by avivo | Hacker News Reader

FYI, it seems that Visual Studio sends a lot of data about your usage back to Microsoft.

"This includes information about how you use the products and services, such as the features you use, the web pages you visit, and the search terms you enter." (among other things such as name & device identifiers https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/dn948229)

You can disable this...but it requires you to re-disable it on every product update. https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/supporting/FAQ#_how-to-di...

Is this now standard practice?

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> the web pages you visit, and the search terms you enter

Is this for real? I had no option to disable it when installing VS Code. And it only said usage statistics! Nothing about recording my web-surf and search.

I doubt it tracks pages you visit in other applications…

Its for "Visual Studio", not "Visual Studio Code"

This has been on Debian, Netbeans, IntelliJ, and other editors / software / OS since as far back as I can remember. Not sure if it's standard, so long as it's optional I don't mind it.

Yeah, I first noticed this on desktop software in the early 2000s. Knowing how people are using your products is pretty critical for software companies to improve.

And yet it clearly violates our expectations of privacy. You don't think clicking a menu on a desktop app will send a report back to Microsoft HQ.

There are many ways to improve software that do not involve analyzing unwitting users, like making it clearly opt-in.

If it were opt-in, I would absolutely opt-into it. I want the companies who make products I use/consume to succeed - that's why I never install ad-block. I watch tons of shows on YouTube and niche video sites, and I know the ads are what help these companies stay alive.

While I know installing ad-block is still opt-out (not -in), it's still a choice of a click that I'm making. I want to support you, but I don't want the choice of privacy made for me.

By doing that, you're implicitly saying "exploit me". You are helping them succeed, but only in the way that they want. I don't think subjecting yourself to such torture, when it will only bring more of the same, is a good idea.

You post on Hacker News, which is a marketing vehicle for YCombinator. Your content helps make it more attractive to prospective startup founders, which lets YCombinator reach their target market with virtually no marketing expense.

Why is sending usage data to Microsoft saying "exploit me", but contributing free marketing to YCombinator is something you do daily?

The world doesn't have to operate on zero-sum principles. There's nothing wrong with helping someone or something out "just because".

One big difference is that I'm fully in control of what I post on HN, whereas "usage data" is far less well-defined. I can literally see every single byte that gets sent to HN, but "usage data" is so vague (and likely intentionally so) that it could mean just about anything you do with the product.

With respect to "exploit me", that was more in reference to not using an adblocker.

Debian shares all of my web or visits and searches with... whom, exactly? And I have to disable this on every update? Really?

I thought it was just what packages you installed though, not sure about web visits, that sounds more like Ubuntu itself maybe?

Debians popcon (Popularity Contest) which tracked package installs was always opt-in as far as I can remember.

Ubuntu sent Unity dash searches to the web (with an opt-out) for a few releases, but that is back to opt-in now thankfully. As far as I know Ubuntu never tracked any other web traffic.

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