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Ask HN: Should We Create a Badge for Software That Does Not Track You?

32 points by jehna1 ↗ HN
If there was a badge that indicates you're not tracked, it would affect my behaviour when choosing a software service.

If big enough user group became aware of this, maybe it would add pressure for larger corporations to think about their users' privacy

12 comments

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mvid
There is no way to enforce it, though. Seems like the “organic” label
jehna1
Can you tell more about the "organic" label?
Wowfunhappy
Sure you can enforce it. The organization responsible for the label also trademarks the label and logo. They can then decide who to license it to.

The label does need a benevolent, trusted steward. This should not be insurmountable.

surfsvammel
I like it!

Badge or not. I believe and hope that we will see less tracking in the future. Consumers will change this directly and indirectly through policy.

jehna1
> I believe and hope that we will see less tracking in the future

As a consumer I sure hope so too, but I'm only seeing increase on different methods of tracking at the corporate level; tracking software is becoming more cheap, accessible and easier to use

HocusLocus
Q: Should We Create a Badge for Software That Does Not Track You?

A: YES! A unique one for each person.

neilv
The Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom" certification program [1] seems related.

The FSF's definition of freedom here might not be quite what everyone has in mind, but the program is worth looking at and considering.

[1] https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-f...

jehna1
"Respects your freedom" badge seems to be hardware-related. This is exactly what we'd need for the software products too!
jraph
The F-Droid store on Android does that.

If nothing is mentioned, the application does not track.

For applications with tracking, a tracking anti-feature label is shown under the section "This app has features you may not like".

Other labels exist, like "has non-free addons", or "the app contains non-free parts upstream".

For an example of such a label: https://f-droid.org/fr/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/

It makes me think that a catalog like OpenFoodFacts but for software with such anti-features listed could be an idea.

gnicholas
This would be great. I'm in the process of putting together a blog post that explains that the reason our software isn't free (like many other browser plugins) is that we're not doing lousy stuff with your browsing history.