Purpose of this document

The purpose of this document is to collect and inform users about the history and future of telemetry for IPFS-GUI projects. In addition, this document should contain links to all of the code, parent issues, and discussions related to the telemetry changes documented below.

A PR for the official telemetry policy and methodology can be found at https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ignite-metrics/pull/35. Ideally, https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ignite-metrics/tree/main/docs/telemetry is where devs and users will go once the telemetry project is complete.

Explanation of terms

History

Before 2022Q4, telemetry was only done in ‣ and ‣, using countly, and our self-hosted countly server, directly. The telemetry done within ipfs-webui and ipfs-desktop was opt-in only. No metrics data was sent unless a user specifically opted-in to collecting metrics. If a user did not opt-in (i.e., declined metrics collection) we had no insight into those users’ usage of our applications.

Our other projects did not do telemetry or any metrics data collection and did not mention telemetry or metrics at all. The only exception is ‣ where we have had a privacy policy since 2019-02-15. The privacy policy in ipfs-companion indicates that no data is collected whatsoever, and that will be changing.

State as of 2022Q4

Project name Telemetry Claims Telemetry Collected?
ipfs-webui N/A (no privacy policy) Only on opt-in
ipfs-desktop N/A Only on opt-in
ipfs-companion Privacy Policy indicates no data is collected None
All other projects N/A None

All projects except ipfs-webui, ipfs-desktop, and ipfs-companion had no claims nor telemetry collection. The most common case for our projects.