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overall i'm impressed with bluesky, BUT i have some privacy concerns i'd like to see the team address. these are crucial if bluesky is to live up to its goal & stated values. (THREAD INCOMING 🧵) to start, bluesky contains tracking from companies like sentry & statsig, with no way to opt out.

the screenshots from above are via ublock origin's logger, but this tracking can also be seen directly in bluesky's source code... a couple examples below github.com/bluesky-soci... github.com/bluesky-soci...

bluesky also appears to operate their own domain for telemetry & data collection, "events.bsky.app". this appears to be related to statsig, as it can be seen directly called in the "statsig.tsx" file from their source code. it appears to be collecting info regarding app interaction, clicks, etc.

more examples of data collected: there's more as well, you can check it out for yourself here: raw.githubusercontent.com/bluesky-soci... as i stated at the beginning, there is no way to opt out of this data collection.

to add insult to injury, bluesky's main website (bsky.social) includes tracking from GOOGLE, arguably one of the most privacy invasive companies out there. no introduction needed.

to be clear, does this mean bluesky is as bad for privacy as x/twitter, threads, etc? no, of course not. but let's compare this to a platform like mastodon. both mastodon's website (joinmastodon.org) AND their official instance (mastodon.social) have no tracking or data collection of any kind.

i can respect the desire to collect analytics/telemetry to improve a product or service. what i can't respect is giving this data to third parties like statsig, sentry, and GOOGLE, WITHOUT user consent and a way to opt out.

bluesky claims to be "social media as it should be". behavior like this is the direct OPPOSITE, and what users ditching platforms like twitter and threads want to AVOID. what follows are my suggestions for @bsky.app moving forward.

1. google tag manager should be removed, period. no excuses. 2. ideally: sentry, statsig, and 'events.bsky.app' should also be removed. but a fair compromise IMO would be to give users a choice. something as simply as an opt-out toggle would suffice. anything at all would be a welcome improvement.

i hope that the bluesky team will take this feedback into account, and here's to bluesky fulfilling its mission and becoming the open social platform of the future. 🍻 i only made this thread because i want it to succeed. 💙 🦋

Interesting. Why is the data that they are presumably tracking important? Like why should anyone care genuinely asking

that's a valid question to ask, and ultimately, it varies. the bottom line is that these 3rd party companies are receiving data from bluesky that could be used to profile and track users for purposes like advertising. i understand bluesky wanting analytics to improve your product -