Re: Opt-in is the only way to go...
Agree. Opting in would put Canonical in the position of having to invite the user to join and provide the user with convincing statements to make that happen in a number of cases sufficient for their purposes.
However and beyond that, Canonical and Ubuntu are private organizations. As such, there is no guarantee other than their word that what they are saying is true (many other such institutions have either shaved the truth or outright lied about it), and even if they are being honest and sincere, they can change their minds tomorrow (as many other such institutions have done in the past to the detriment of user privacy).
That is, it is not paranoia if there is 1) a broad and long history in the industry of such promises broken and 2) endless efforts to bury personal tracking policies under heaps of legalese jargon and flowery PR statements about their commitments to "do no evil" etc. There really are a lot of "bad guys" - re personal tracking - out there.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
