zlacker

It is literally spying on the user.

Unless you're somehow saying telemetry doesn't report anything about what a user is doing to it's home server.

>>malfis+(OP)
In my mind, the difference is that spying does or can contain PII, or PII can be inferred from it, where telemetry is incapable of being linked to an individual, to a reasonable extent.

>>nomel+R
Every single piece of telemetry sent over the internet includes PII - the IP address of the sender - by virtue of how our internet protocols are designed.

>>nomel+R
In my mind, any feature collecting information about me, truly anonymized or not is spying if it's opt out.

>>nomel+R
I think "spying" implies "everywhere possible", including, outside the app

>>malfis+(OP)
Spying and telemetry is not something specific to Bytedance. Example: Google ? Or Microsoft ? Why is it a problem only when it is Bytedance or Huawei ? For the exact same activity

In fact the Chinese entities are even less likely to share your secrets to your governement than their best friends at Google

>>gpm+A1
At least spiritually not if the traffic is routed over a Tor circuit. :-)

>>gpm+A1
> includes PII - the IP address of the sender

Apple provides telemetry services that strips the IP before providing it to the app owners. Routing like this requires trust (just as a VPN does), but it's feasible.

>>rvnx+R2
No one in the chain of comments you are replying to has mentioned anything about Google, and on HackerNews you will find the majority sentiment is against spying in all forms - especially by Google, Meta, etc.

Even if we interact with your rhetoric[1] at face value, there is a big difference between data going to your own elected government versus that of a foreign adversary.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

>>cuuupi+D3
So you are implying at the end that it is better that your secrets (“telemetry”) go to your local agencies and to possible relatives or family who work on Gmail, Uber, etc ?

>>aleph_+U2
Unless you control most of the Tor nodes :-)

So many US universities running such nodes, without ever getting legal troubles. Such lucky boys

>>rvnx+R2
> Why is it a crime only when it is ByteDance or Huawei ?

It should be a crime for Google as well.

"Whataboutism" is a logical fallacy.

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

>>rvnx+R2
My comment has nothing to do with a specific company but about telemetry and spying on the customer.

"What about Google" is not a logical continuation of this discussion

>>malfis+(OP)
If anything it is spying on the application itself. This is limited in scope compared to spyware which is software which spies on users themselves.

>>gpm+A1
This is like saying every physical business is collecting PII because employees can technically take a photo of a customer. It's hard to do business without the possibility of collecting PII.

>>rvnx+i5
Yes, naturally I trust my own elected government, or possible relatives/family, far more than I trust a foreign adversary

>>cuuupi+2c
I'm sorry but why? Your government can use this data to actually hurt you and put you on the no-fly list, or even put you in prison.

But a foreign government is limited to what it can do to you if you are not a very high-value target.

So I try as much as possible to use software and services from a non-friendly government because this is the highest guarantee that my data will not be used against me in the future.

And since we can all agree that any data that is collected will end up with the government some way or another. Using forging software is the only real guarantee.

Unless the software is open source and its server is self-hosted, it should be considered Spyware.

>>charci+68
No, it's like saying a business that has a CCTV camera recording customers, and sending that data off site to a central location, where they proceed to proceed to use the data for some non-PII-related purpose (maybe they're tracking where in stores people walk, on average), are in fact sending PII to that off site location.

Distinguishing factors from your example include

1. PII is actually encoded and handled by computer systems, not the mere capability for that to occur.

2. PII is actually sent off site, not merely able to be sent off site.

3. It doesn't assert that the PII is collected, which could imply storage, it merely asserts that it is sent as my original post does. We don't know whether or not it is stored after being received and processed.

>>nomel+A3
You said it's different from spying because there is no PII in the information. Now you're saying it's different because it's not given to app owners.

Why is it relevant whether they provide it to app owners directly? The issue people have is the information is logged now and abused later, in whatever form.

>>gpm+co
I was giving a purely physical, analog example.

>>charci+tS
If you imagine the CCTV camera in my example is a film-video-camera and the processing happening off site is happening in a dark room and not on a computer... my more accurate version of your analogy is also analog.

>>Capric+8t
Which has clear logically consistency, at the app owner level, which is the context of my reply.

If the app owner can't obtain PII, I don't believe the app owner is spying.

Is Apple spying?

> Routing like this requires trust

It depends on if you trust them, and their privacy policy. If they're functioning as a PII stripping proxy, as they claim, then I would claim no, to the extent of what's technically possible. I would also claim that a trustworthy VPN is not spying on you. YOMV.

>>charci+G7
Those who collect PII, anonymized or not, are collecting information for one or more legitimate purposes, and that same information lends itself to ends which can reasonably be construed as spying when it is inevitably exposed to those who desire to spy. Those app developers can’t plausibly deny knowing that this information sharing will occur or is exceedingly likely to occur, and by making such data collection opt-out, app developers knowingly are acting on behalf of spies, despite having no intention to directly spy themselves. If you are an app developer with opt-out telemetry or an end user of an app so developed, who is the spy or doing the spying is a distinction without a difference to my view.