[Bug 469354] Re: popularity-contest should be enabled by default

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: popularity-contest (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Confirmed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/469354

Title:
  popularity-contest should be enabled by default

Status in “popularity-contest” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: popularity-contest

  The entire purpose of the popularity-contest package is to collect
  statistics.  In order for statistics to be useful, they need to come
  from a significant sample size representative of a population.
  Currently the sample is neither significant nor representative, as it
  is a relatively few people who have self-selected themselves to be in
  that group.  The results therefore are likely to be heavily skewed
  towards more technical users, individuals versus group deployments,
  and people from wealthier economic backgrounds that have time to
  fritter away looking at popcon data out of curiosity (in addition to
  the developers with a legitimate interest).

  In short, unless popcon is enabled by default, the statistics from it
  will continue to be invalid and of very little use, or worse,
  substantially misleading.  Since the stated purpose of those
  statistics is to guide future Ubuntu development, that is a serious
  problem.

  Now, some people may raise "privacy" concerns with this sort of thing.
  To address that, we need to make sure that it is clear that the data
  is submitted anonymously, and that every effort is made to keep it so.
  (eg. the server shouldn't keep IP address logs at all)  As long as
  there is no way of ever connecting the data to an individual user or
  machine, there should be no problem with the data existing for the
  community as a whole.

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