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athensresearch / athens

Athens is no longer maintainted. Athens was an open-source, collaborative knowledge graph, backed by YC W21
https://athensresearch.github.io/athens
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revert(analytics): let non-paying users opt-out #740

Closed solarkraft closed 3 years ago

solarkraft commented 3 years ago

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.

— Epictetus

When I found out about Athens I was amazed. Finally an open source app for something so important! Finally an app respecting my privacy that I can use without bad feelings looming in the back of my head! But when I saw this:

2021-03-04T16:21:57Z

my (really high) excitement got dampened a lot. Do you not think non-paying users deserve privacy?

I really thought about becoming a paying user, but now I am hesitant. Are these your values? I never even intended to disable analytics either, I trust(ed you more before this) after all, but this is a pretty big red flag.

Are you willing to overthink your data collection stance?

syvb commented 3 years ago

Yeah, it sucks. I've started writing a fork that fixes this

tangjeff0 commented 3 years ago

I disagree with the frame of your question @solarkraft, but I do believe that there are other ways to monetize that are more aligned with user needs.

Feel free to create PR for this @Smittyvb, otherwise I can revert the code when I have time.

benjamindovinh commented 3 years ago

The issue of privacy or not for anyone would not exist if not for someone willing to spend time developing

shebang42 commented 3 years ago

As far as I can see, only some basic properties like OS, pathname, browser&library version, and a token ID are shared. You can easily verify this yourself with a proxy like ZAP, Charly or Burpsuite. It's a HTTP POST with a base64 encoded json object. Which properties are you worried about? (Maybe the team can limit this property?)

Yeah, it sucks. I've started writing a fork that fixes this

Good luck keeping up with the (amazing) development velocity! (There are far easier ways to limit telemetry data).

solarkraft commented 3 years ago

Which properties are you worried about?

I'm not particularly worried about any of these, but somebody might be. I intend to leave analytics enabled, but think people should be able to decide.

Telling someone "Thanks for helping making Athens better" when they don't even have a choice is sheer mockery.

I don't mind paid-only features as much as removing people's choice about their data. It looks a bit like disabling safety features on a car.

Either way, thanks for considering this! I plan to become a paying user once the change is shipped.

benjamindovinh commented 3 years ago

I'm willing to pay for privacy so that others may get it for free. What about you?

solarkraft commented 3 years ago

Woohoo!

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1337470/114097576-85bf9480-98c0-11eb-8886-e1ca986cd28a.mp4

I plan to become a paying user once the change is shipped.

I'm on my way!