[wrldos]

But that's wrong. There is no position for this in a civilised society:

"If we ask everyone is going to say no, so we will steal it unless someone tells us not to"

[BonoboIO]

I think the comparison of telemetry and stealing is pretty harsh.

Is opt-out telemetry unethical ... depends. If you use it in a privacy preserving way no, if you spy on your Users, sell the data for money or advertising obviously it is unethical.

The hard truth is, nobody reads the manual. Opt in telemetry is often a minority, and you then work with niche data for a minority that influences your development in certain ways.

[JohnFen]

It really all boils down to meaningful consent.

> if you spy on your Users

In my opinion, any data collection about me or my machines that occurs without my active informed consent is "spying". This is my fundamental problem with opt-out mechanisms. They do not indicate or imply that active consent was obtained.

[wrldos]

But is that not the decision of the person who owns the data?

[lokar]

That’s not their argument. They say if you ask everyone if it is ok most just ignore your question.

[wrldos]

That's how they presented their argument. It can be presented both ways depending on how you want to promote it.