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Comment by 1over137 | Hacker News Reader

Free version sends telemetry with no opt-out.

You can still use paid version if you want to turn telemetry off. With the free version, you can either use it and say thanks, or not use it at all.

Indeed, this is one of the various options one has.

Another option is to not use it and be vocal against telemetry, hopefully convincing others to do the same while dissuading other developers (especially in a forum like Hacker News where people that build stuff gather) from adding it on their products.

I wouldn't take people seriously who are vocal against telemetry in a product which has paid version with the option to turn telemetry off. Such people would be vocal against paying for the work others do. Also, if properly anonymised, telemetry isn't the devil people make it to be.

> I wouldn't take people seriously who are vocal against telemetry in a product which has paid version with the option to turn telemetry off.

You are conflating two separate things, a product does not need telemetry to function and if telemetry is needed it can be opt-in. Similarly a product does not need to be free to have telemetry nor does it need to be paid to not have telemetry, as i already wrote these two are completely separate.

> Such people would be vocal against paying for the work others do.

Again you are conflating two completely separate things: people being concerned about the privacy implications of telemetry (both directly and indirectly, see below) and people who are against about paying others for their work.

> Also, if properly anonymised, telemetry isn't the devil people make it to be.

Even if anonymized (which is something you can only guarantee for open source projects that either you or someone you trust has checked they do such anonymization properly - and also you either build yourself from the source that was checked or you used a binary from a reproducible build) having telemetry in place still creates and reinforces a precedent of it being acceptable which in turn can be used to excuse other programs doing the same but those programs actually not caring about doing proper anonymization (at best) or even outright spying on you (at worst).

Besides anonymized data can still be used in conjunction with other data to be deanonymized and the best way to protect users from this is to not collect that data in the first place.

I'm not conflating these two things. I didn't say they have to have telemetry to keep it free. All I am saying is, if you have the option to pay and decide whether you give them telemetry or not, then there is no reason being vocal about them giving you more for free. It is a company and they need to make profit. If more users with telemetry enabled gives them more data that they can use to indirectly increase their profit, I only applaud them. If they stopped allowing to turn telemetry off for the product in paid version as well, then you would have a valid point.

That said, nothing wrong with being vocal about privacy and high standards in collecting usage.

Privacy is a fundamental human right, not something you get to withhold from people until they give you money.

Yes, I could pay them to get a product that lets me disable telemetry. I'd much rather just use something else, so I don't have to fund their unethical business practices.

That is an extremely disingenuous framing of the topic. They make a product, which you can pay money for. If you prefer, they will also let you pay by sending them usage telemetry. In neither case are you being deprived of a human right or extorted in any way - it's a transaction where you receive a benefit in exchange for something you give to them.

Genuine question. Why do you care if other people agree with you about telemetry? I almost always enable telemetry on anything I don't believe will serve me ads.

Democracy is the dictorship of the majority, thus when majority is fine with telemetry disabling it won't be an option any longer.

facebook were certainly slapped down for attempting "consent or pay"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay

"anonymised" data is often extremely easy to de-anonymise

Compared to most UI dark patterns and scummy tactics to get you to "consent" (actually tricking you into agreeing, because nobody can't be bothered to jump through like a bunch of legalese and dialogs), them just giving you that choice of straight up paying feels better.

Not really interested in their services, but at least that sort of payment would let me expect less trickery in the future.

> Critics of this consent model have called it "pay-or-okay", claiming that the monthly fee is disproportional and that users are not able to withdraw their consent to tracking as easily as it is given, which the GDPR requires. Massimiliano Gelmi, a data protection lawyer at NOYB, has stated that "The law is clear, withdrawing consent must be as easy as giving it in the first place. It is painfully obvious that paying €251,88 per year to withdraw consent is not as easy as clicking an 'Okay' button to accept the tracking."

Under this model, you'd just have to refuse service to everyone who doesn't pay (killing your platform) or let people partake in your platform with no revenue off of them (killing your platform). Neither seems reasonable from the perspective of that business? Are they just supposed to find other ways of monetizing their users or perish then?

Yes, declaring that to be illegitimate is the point. Just like we declare polluting rivers to be illegitimate despite it being good for business.

> anonymised" data is often extremely easy to de-anonymise

If it's location data, yes. If it's your IDE usage stats (plugins, file types, whatever), not really.

Maybe it includes a list of fonts installed on your system, your screen resolution, etc. You don’t need much to get a “fingerprint” that is anonymous but can be correlated with those collected by other tools’ telemetry.

In theory yes? But if state actors, the ones with the sophistication to literally build a signature based on your fonts using your IDE, and then infiltrate a second application to do... whatever... if they want you that bad, they're eventually just going to get you, even if they have to just send someone to your house with a rusty wrench to retrieve all your passwords. Those guys can get the job done much more cheaply anyway.

so we shouldn't worry about de-anonymisation because the government could kick your door down?

seems like a weak argument

Nowhere was I talking about state actors. Most fingerprinting is done for ad targeting, as far as I know.

It's nonetheless useful for people to warn others about spyware. You can find the tradeoff acceptable (or be willing/able to put the necessary isolation in place) while thanking the other commenter for the heads up.

I wasn't aware they were using telemetry in the free versions until this thread. Why I didn't just assume that a free service or product offered by a for-profit company isn't doing _something_ to extract value is beyond me.

Not that people are obligated to use IntelliJ IDEs, but it's sad that it boils down to "You can have privacy if you can afford it". But admittedly is better to have the option to use it than not being able to use it at all

Their telemetry promises not to collect private data. Yes, your code will probably used for training their models. But so it would be if you publish it on GitHub.

All data on my computer is private unless I specifically make it public. Data thieves like to make a rhetorical sleight of hand where they say they're not really collecting data about you (this happens especially with the topic of "differential privacy"), but that's just gaslighting (i.e. trying to manipulate you into thinking you simply don't understand what they are doing). e.g. I'm not willing to share noisy correlations about my preferences either. That information is private, and it is information, or they wouldn't want it.

Then you are free to not use their product.

My privacy is indeed differential. I am willing to give them the information on my coding patterns and even non-commercial code for a free license, if it is not linked to my identity. This is a fair exchange. I am not willing to do this if they will use this information to sell me ads, or sell it (unless properly anonymized) to some other company. And most certainly I won't agree if they collect any information beyond what's happen in the IDE.

Not _everything_ I do on my computer is fully private. I apply much stricter standards to things that are _really_ private. But not everything is like this.

This comment is public. It will probably be used to train yet another LLM. I am fine with that.

Sure, but as I said elsewhere, it's still important that people point out that past the headline ("it's free") is that it is also malware (it spies on you). People were free to not use BonziBuddy as well, but it was rightfully characterized at the time as spyware. If the product also functioned as a proxy for botnet traffic, you wouldn't simply say "well you're free to not use it". You'd say "beware, the 'free' version is malware". Spyware is similar.

Posting to a public online forum is of course specifically making the post public.

How is this not illegal under GDPR? I thought asking users to pay money to not be tracked is not allowed.

It’s anonymized, GDPR doesn’t apply.

So if you are poor, you are ripe for getting your data mined. Excellent.

Food and fresh water costs money too, newsflash.

You don't have to use their products, though. Nor is there a shortage of free C++ IDE alternatives that don't have telemetry in them, for those to whom it is important.

So, they’re contradicting themselves, saying both (https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-f...)

“With the new non-commercial license type, you can enjoy a full-featured IDE that is identical to its paid version. The only difference is in the Code With Me feature – you get Code With Me Community with your free license.”

and (https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-f...)

“We appreciate that this might not be convenient for everyone, but there is unfortunately no way to opt out of sending anonymized statistics to JetBrains under the terms of the Toolbox agreement for non-commercial use. The only way to opt out is by switching to either a paid subscription or one of the complimentary options mentioned here.”

Also, if they find that unfortunate, why did they make the product do that?

> there is unfortunately no way to opt out of sending anonymized statistics

There is a way - simply use an open source alternative to JetBrains.

There is your price right there.

Yes, that one is a real bummer, actually, but if they're using something like how Go does it [0], at least it's tolerable if you're bound to using it.

[0]: https://telemetry.go.dev/privacy

Can you give us proof of that? I have not seen anything like that in my RustRover usage but it might be that I have missed that.

It's in the article:

> It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics.

From the link: "It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics."

They're probably using the telemetry to monitor commercial abuse.

The telemetry is used to analyzed the most used / unused features and to improve the product. For example, it's useful to understand that some specific technology gains more popularity among users and contribute more into its support.

I have no doubt that this is the primary use. It was the only way to use that data until now. Now that there is a free offering, there is a new potential use that neatly explains why it is required in the free offering and optional otherwise.

couldn't we just block the traffic with /etc/hosts?

Then you're presumably committing an actual crime, or at least, their lawyers will see it that way, probably, as copyright infringement because they only gave you a license to use the software if you left the telemetry on.

just use a firewall, no?

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