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Comment by jlas | Hacker News Reader

I think nowadays you'll find analytics in just about anything consumer facing.

Mostly the VC-backed web stuff, where folks coming from the web don't seem to understand that explicitly and unnecessarily contacting a server to push analytics is very different than recording the requests that web browsers make by virtue of their operation.

Anyone polite asks, or doesn't do it at all.

Ever see that questions when you first start your phone, or MS office, or Google Chrome, or OS that's like 'Over time we like to collect anonymous diagnostics and usage information. Yes or no?'

That's analytics.

As I said, anyone polite asks, and many don't do it at all.

Contacting a server IS asking. You can block the connection if you like.

How is contacting a server, unnecessarily and without user's informed consent or even knowledge, considered asking?

When it's done by software running on hardware you control, it has to consult your hosts file and your iptables and your proxies and your routers. Ultimately it can't do anything you don't let it. You don't have to opt-in to paying attention to the connections each program makes, but you also don't have to willfully ignore them.

If you care about that sort of situational awareness, there are tools like Little Snitch that make it easier.

That's the dumbest definition of "user consent" I've ever heard.

Well, it means every user to ever visit my website has consented to having my virus' on their PC, right?

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