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What constitutes Usage Data. Is it sharing the posts I view, communities I subscribe to etc?
Does paying for a premium version stop this data being collected?
From DuckDuckGo:
For what it's worth, I subscribed to Ultra about an hour ago and DDG hasn't picked up any additional tracking attempts since then. I think it may be limited entirely to Google's ad service for the free, ad-supported tier and maybe crash diagnostics that the app gives you the option of enabling or disabling.
I think that the lack of further attempts backs up what lj shared a bit ago in the Discord. That's still a hell of a lot of tracking for folks who can't or don't want to pay, though.
FWIW that page is a bit deceptive , it's not saying it's collecting all of that data. The only info on that page is "146 tracking attempts from Google", which makes sense if it has Google ads.
Please note that the long list of things collected is what Google is known to collect, not necessarily that these are the things being collected. If you click on any other app that is also with Google trackers (practically every app listed on this page), you will find that the stuff listed are the same.
Doesn't this ad/subscription model, go against the grain a bit? With Lemmy & the fediverse in general, being an opensource environment, which has no ads, & funded by donations, rather than a subscription model...
No, it doesn't. Unlike Reddit, Twitter, or Threads, Lemmy offers a variety of apps. There are so many that there is something for everyone. Even a "professional" app that finances itself with advertising or a subscription is allowed. The special thing about Lemmy is the freedom of choice.
Funding your project with donations is just not a realistic long-term goal. This is why so many instances fold up shop in just a couple of weeks as their servers are overloaded and no one donates money to keep it up.
Capitalism is a problem but it doesn't mean everything has to be socialism. There can be an in-between.
Capitalism is a problem but it doesn't mean everything has to be socialism. There can be an in-between.
It's not even that to be honest. Socialism is characterized by worker ownership and operation of companies primarily. LJ is a sole proprietor exploiting nobody, not earning a wage via labor and not having to work because he under pays others to work for him. He's just a worker like the rest of us.
I definitely agree that donations is not a viable long term path. Maybe in a different economic model. People need to be realistic. The general arguments they are making against Sync in favor of FOSS apps can also be made against them using FOSS apps by the FLOSS folks. People should pay if they can. And use a free third party app if they can't, or don't like how sync works.
I really don't get the hate people are putting out there over this. This is why third party apps build strong ecosystems. You can find what you want.
You're free to use any app you want. Some people prefer free open-source apps, some people want to pay for a quality app. It's good to have a choice unlike with Reddit. I don't understand people complaining about having additional choice because they don't like it.
Some people want to keep the Fediverse ecosystem completely pure in terms of free software, and they will yell at you if you don't play along.
I donβt have an issue with a reasonable subscription, but hard pass on trackers, especially when youβre paying.
Not defending tracking or anything, but you do not get trackers if you pay. This tracker is just for ads, which you don't get if you pay.
I would one time pay for this, but a subscription feels meh.
There are plenty of apps for Lemmy, that aren't supported by ads, nor should they be, given the whole ethos of the fediverse..
My go-to analogy is Usenet. Back when usenet basically was the internet for a lot of people, youβd have access to a usenet server through your school, isp, or with a separate subscription to a usenet provider. Usenet itself was free and there were open source implementations of the client and server side components. There were also commercial implementations. The important thing was that net news ran on an open protocol that no company owned. Companies and individuals were free to do what they wanted.
I would not hesitate to buy a client that achieved the functionality of Apollo, or even Alien Blue. I didnβt really start using reddit until I had a good client, and I can see client-side issues being a hurdle to lemmy adoption. Iβd prefer paying for a client over ad support. Still, the free and open source client community should be core going forward. I can even see the potential for a commercial server, once the community reaches critical mass in terms of content.
Iβve been involved with the foss community since my first linux install back in like 1994 or so. I remember when rms and esr were household names, so long as your household was a dorm room with cs majors. Like with linux (gnu/linux?) commercial and foss apps can co-exist, and like with linux there should remain a foss purist option in addition to the mixed mode option.
I donβt think the fediverse is facing a threat of commercial takeover - certainly not the lemmyverse. If anything, the threat is not onboarding enough people to be competitive with whatever reddit clone manages to launch in the next year or so, and which has the commercial backing to drive users to the service and have stable, scalable, and production quality code.
I got to that exact screen and my excitement went from 100 to like 10. I'm back on Connect, didn't even take Sync out for a spin.
Same for me. Tried disabling personal data for all advertisers but you gotta go one by one, there's no Reject all option and there are way too many... so back to Connect.
I was just pointed towards infinity for Lemmy. It's pretty solid, open source, no ads
LJ was very adamant about not collecting or keeping any user data under the reddit regime. I'm happy giving him the benefit of the doubt here.
The point is we don't formally know.
The dev has stated that the tracking is disabled if ads are disabled, and other users have confirmed that via duckduckgo.
Hope this works but here's what ddg is showing me was blocked. Only Google attempted to track and it was only once before I purchased ultra. Basically everything Google already knows about anyone using android. 
Yea but does that prevent Google from getting that data via AdMob?
Removing ads via IAP or the Sync Ultra subscription eliminates that data sharing.
Per the dev, responding to my question in the discord server just now.
Why are the responses to all these questions happening in Discord rather than the official Sync Lemmy channel? π€
The Discord is just as official as this community?
Because it's the official Discord, and it's been around far longer than Sync for Lemmy? What kind of question is that even?
Usage dataπΏ
Since itβs admob my guess is itβs Google analytics. Which means everything you look at or touch, but itβs probably as much for the developer so they can see how users are reacting to the app layout and designs.
The developer should move to an open source platform for analytics if this bothers users.
GA can only collect what you specifically give it (clicks, touches, hovers...etc), so the developer should be able to be very specific here. Using GA by default only collects very basic impression info.
it's whatever admob collects, check their policy
Use a duckduckgo tracker blocker. It'll show you what trackers it has and what they typically collect.
This can be deceiving for link aggregator apps, because it'll also pick up trackers that other sites are using, and not the app itself.
Aside from this, I just spent 10 minutes removing consent for advertising/cookies/tracking/whatever for about 100 different vendors. I really hope I don't need to do that again, ever.
Saving this for later to see if there's a response.