Who says only Microsoft gathers 'anonymous' user data

[Madspyman]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODQ5MA

Just uploaded to the Ubuntu Lucid repository for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (and we imagine it will appear shortly in Maverick too for Ubuntu 10.10) is a new package called canonical-census, which marks its initial release. Curious about what this package provides, we did some digging and found it's for tracking Ubuntu installations by sending an "I am alive" ping to Canonical on a daily basis...The program is to be added to the daily Cron jobs to be executed so that each day it will report to Canonical over HTTP the number of times this system previously sent to Canonical (this counter is stored locally and with it running on a daily basis it's thereby indicating how many days the Ubuntu installation has been active), the Ubuntu distributor channel, the product name as acquired by the system's DMI information, and which Ubuntu release is being used. That's all that canonical-census does, at least for now. Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical.

Does this rub anyone the wrong way? Being a avid Google user it's something I've learned to live with, but is it really necessary for Canonicle to include a data tracking package by default?

Edit:

Probably should have mentioned this.

The good news for those concerned about privacy is that it appears for now Canonical is just interested in tracking the users of OEM installations -- those PCs that ship with Ubuntu by default such as from ZaReason, System76, and Dell. This information will obviously be valuable to both companies to see whether customers are keeping around their Ubuntu installations or just wiping them and just how often Ubuntu is being used on these systems (judging by the number of times that system reported to Canonical's server previously).

My thoughts are,

What if someone uninstalled canonical-census, no way to be sure so they'd be fudging the numbers regardless. Also uninstalling Ubuntu doesn't mean your installing Windows, it just might mean starting over from a fresh Ubuntu install which probably won't include canonical-census. This is a stupid idea.

Also are they keeping track of IP addresses? What if someone installs a bunch of Ubuntu partitions on one machine all with canonical-census installed? You could easily fool Canonical into thinking that market-share is rising rapidly. It's seems like a flawed idea to me.

[samalex]

As long as they're up front about it and give the user the option to enable or disable it, I'm fine with it. I'd probably disable it on my system, but any software that calls home should have permission from the user before doing so -- else it's considered malware in my book. And if Canonical makes a habit of including such software without telling users, it'll turn users away.

Sam

[zekopeko]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODQ5MA



Does this rub anyone the wrong way? Being a avid Google user it's something I've learned to live with, but is it really necessary for Canonicle to include a data tracking package by default?

It would be really nice if you mentioned that it's only for OEM installs and not vanilla Ubuntu.

[FuturePilot]

Oh boy here we go.

First all it really says is PING $VERSION.
Second, this is targeted at OEM installs meaning it won't be included on the ISO image you download.
Third, with no way to accurately count the number of Ubuntu users and with all the "Linux marketshare at 1%" "Linux marketshare at 2%!!!!111" "Linux marketshare < 1%" discussion I would think that this might be welcome since it may be able to give an actual somewhat accurate number.

[zekopeko]

As long as they're up front about it and give the user the option to enable or disable it, I'm fine with it. I'd probably disable it on my system, but any software that calls home should have permission from the user before doing so -- else it's considered malware in my book. And if Canonical makes a habit of including such software without telling users, it'll turn users away.

Sam

You give more info by visiting a webpage then that OEM-install-only package sends to Canonical.

[Bachstelze]

Second, this is targeted at OEM installs meaning it won't be included on the ISO image you download.

The problem remains. I doubt many OEMs would care about it, let alone mention it to their customers.

[Elfy]

It would be really nice if you mentioned that it's only for OEM installs and not vanilla Ubuntu.

I would agree with that sentiment.

The good news for those concerned about privacy is that it appears for now Canonical is just interested in tracking the users of OEM installations -- those PCs that ship with Ubuntu by default such as from ZaReason, System76, and Dell. This information will obviously be valuable to both companies to see whether customers are keeping around their Ubuntu installations or just wiping them and just how often Ubuntu is being used on these systems (judging by the number of times that system reported to Canonical's server previously). For those not wanting to participate in this anonymous data gathering process, they could always sudo apt-get remove canonical-census.

[Madspyman]

As long as they're up front about it and give the user the option to enable or disable it, I'm fine with it. I'd probably disable it on my system, but any software that calls home should have permission from the user before doing so -- else it's considered malware in my book. And if Canonical makes a habit of including such software without telling users, it'll turn users away.

Sam

Yeah sudo apt-get remove canonical-census. Being able to remove it kind of defeats it's purpose, it's supposed to tell Canonical how long an install has been alive on a daily basis, if the package is removed, Canonical won't be able to tell if it was because Ubuntu was uninstalled or just canonical-census.

[Madspyman]

It would be really nice if you mentioned that it's only for OEM installs and not vanilla Ubuntu.

I must have missed that part. Still don't see how this is going to help Canonical at all.

[LowSky]

just disable the cron job