# Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-jl-telemetry-should-be-opt-in/42209>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [June 28, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-jl-telemetry-should-be-opt-in/42209 "2020-06-28T21:11:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 63

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**Author:** ![ninjin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ninjin/32/58_2.png) [@ninjin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ninjin)\
**Post date:** [July 2, 2020, 1:20am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/pkg-jl-telemetry-should-be-opt-in/42209/63 "2020-07-02T01:20:35Z")

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As a fellow “privacy nut”, it is not about the threat model, whether the invasion is minimal, or telemetry beneficial for the community, but rather about how consent is extracted from the user. To me, any opt-out telemetry is inherently non-consensual as it violates the expectations I have for FOSS software. But perhaps this just shows me being out of touch with the times or that the software utopia I strive for is different from that of the majority of the community? Perhaps nutters like me are best ignored as we are possibly but a rounding error in the community and not contributing much while causing obstruction? I honestly do not know.

What I can say is that when I face my class of a hundred or so students this autumn and introduce Julia I now feel that I morally need to add “…and this is how you disable the opt-out telemetry” so as not be complicit in forcefully extracting their consent. Likewise, when I bundle Julia for my package manager I now feel that I need to add code to disable the telemetry and add an opt-in flag so as to “right a wrong”. It saddens me greatly as I feel that it all distracts from the greatness that is Julia and its community – but perhaps that is due to my own misguided, antiquated idealism?

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