Why So Much Telemetry ?

Hi Threlly, currently, it isn't possible to disable this via the Dropbox desktop application.

The information would be sent to the dev team, to further improve the Dropbox desktop application.

I found this thread because my pihole is also blocking a CRAZY amount of telemetry.dropbox.com and I fully agree with Gary.  We MUST have the option to share our information or not to share the information if that is what we choose.  I am very dissapointed in these findings.  I will also be looking in to another service to migrate to that is more transparent.  

Also fully agree w/ the other annotators. one callback per minute is way too much and not providing an option to turn off undocumented!!! telemetry is even worse. This is a 'good-bye trigger' for me. I also think this is not GDPR compliant. Dropboxers, your data protection seriousness is way too lazy!

I followed this thread ever since I discovered the amount of data dropbox is siphoning under our nose. 

It seems that you are right that this is no compiant of European GDPR. If Dropbox doesn't do something and earn back our trust, I see a class-action lawsuit coming their way. 

Also discovering this thread while researching why my pi-hole is blocking such a lage amount of traffic for a service I pay for.

Hits in 24 Hours:

Hi everyone, I've checked again regarding your concerns and have the following information on the telemetry domain.

Using our Telemetry alias, we do not gather any data that is related to GDPR. The data gathered through this alias is user and device agnostic. This alias primarily reports error logs to our team to better improve our product.
 
Our privacy terms and conditions has more information on what and why we collect certain data. You can view that information on this page. 

Hi Jay,

By the way, I did not accept the post as a solution, that was a finger slip.

If you can revert please do so, if not I'll raise another post for the issue.

Cheers,

Gary

Jay,

unfortunately I have to disagree with your statement "Using our Telemetry alias, we do not gather any data that is related to GDPR. The data gathered through this alias is user and device agnostic. This alias primarily reports error logs to our team to better improve our product." as long as you (Dropbox) don't publish which data is collected.

GDPR regulations are pretty restrictive and therefore companies should always treat any customer data they are collecting as sensitive personal information as long as not otherwise proven. According to GDPR you (Dropbox) have always to prove that this data is necessary to provide the offered service(s), data is necessary for legal purposes or that you have a legitimate interest (overruling the data ower's interests) to process any data owned by the customer (and even these telemetry data are owned by me, because they originate from my computers). 

Collecting data for debugging purposes is OK, as long as it has been approved by the user. This could be simply achieved by an opt-in mechanism (for EU citizens). This would help you to cirumvent all of the GDPR hassle.

Cheers

Doni

I'm not in the EU but I would like the option to opt out as well. In the meantime I'm blocking all traffic to to that domain using Little Snitch (macOS).

I'm also seeing a huge amount of requests on my network - they get blocked by pihole.

Anonymized or not, I would like an option to opt-out of diagnostics. Especially in the paying tiers of this product.

This is a missing opt-in issue.

This is a privacy issue.

Not a "contact us for..." issue.

It's not your customers role to have take up a task to find out why Dropbox have misled, hidden and now seek to obfuscate

your customers attempts to control their own data.

This hidden use of our data is in bad faith to your customers.

This is an issue of Dropbox's spirit and character.

We know what Facebook would do, what will Dropbox do ?

I agree. I'm seeing a Dropbox telemetry request every single minute on my PiHole. This "it isn't possible to turn this off" response from Dropbox is quite disappointing. As a Canadian, this is why I pay for Sync instead, even though the UI is terrible. Telemetry should be opt-in, like on an iPhone. At the very least it should be opt-out. There is no reason this can't be done, even if it means less data for the devs to work with.

I'd also like a way to opt-out... Or else I'll opt-out of the service as a whole.

Did we ever get the missing opt-in?

Ok,

So it looks like Dropbox are trying to ignore us.

Best to all raise a ticket and post on the forum.

Dropbox's social media may also benefit from a post ot two.

Ok Dropbox.

The solution provided is not correct and not accepted.

In the current data climate there is no such thing as "anonymised", the collection of this telemetry alongside other metadata bought and sold in the marketplace makes this data totally identifiable.

The main problem is that we have no ability to control it.
Dropbox refuse to give us control of data they take from our machines.

This must stop.

Again, this issue is not resolved.