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privacy : limit the data uploaded to your server
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The best answer from the company
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I can say with pretty good authority (with graphs to back it up) that everyone here is working crazy amounts of hours and we are prioritizing the stuff that our users are asking for as best we can.
We JUST started rolling out some privacy features and there are more to come.
The first one that we just released is Whitelists, which addresses the most popular concern on this front. You can see details at http://www.rescuetime.com/whitelists
Next on the list is allowing users to NOT send OS Username and Window Title. These are scheduled for the next release, which is probably a week or two out.
We'll do our best to update these threads when we actually build features that speak to them, but (honestly) our best isn't going to be very good. If you'd like to track new features as they launch we ALWAYS blog about them at http://blog.rescuetime.com ... An RSS subscription there would do the trick.
Of course, giving us a poke here (like you just did) will work just fine too. Or, heck, you can call or email!
And, if you'd like to be an early tester on these features, we can always use 'em. Send an email to team @ rescuetime and you can be the first person to give it a try!
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The best answer from everyone
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Hi,
On my Dashboard, I can see a summary of the time I spend of various applications. But looking at your log files, you collect much more than that. For example, if I use Excel, then you collect the application name itself "Excel" but also the name of the file opened inside Excel. This is very critical and does not add value for me when I look at my dashboard. So I would like that you increase privacy by adding an option to send only the name of the application and no other information. Also to hide the OS user name.
For example, instead of sending
22:37:39
<attribute name="app_name" type="string">EXCEL</attribute>
<attribute name="os_username" type="string">my_os_username</attribute>
<attribute name="window_title" type="string">Microsoft Excel - MyFileName.xls</attribute>
<attribute name="end_time" type="string">2007-11-27
send this instead:
22:37:39</attribute>
<attribute name="app_name" type="string">EXCEL</attribute>
<attribute name="os_username" type="string">******</attribute>
<attribute name="window_title" type="string">Microsoft Excel - **********</attribute>
<attribute name="end_time" type="string">2007-11-27
If this feature to limit information sent to you is not added to RescueTime, then there is no way that I can use RescueTime at work. I would get busted if my company finds out I am sending out so much sensitive information. I understand that you promise not to sell this, but I prefer not to send this information on your servers in the first place.
</attribute>
6 people say
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Hi,
On my Dashboard, I can see a summary of the time I spend of various applications. But looking at your log files, you collect much more than that. For example, if I use Excel, then you collect the application name itself "Excel" but also the name of the file opened inside Excel. This is very critical and does not add value for me when I look at my dashboard. So I would like that you increase privacy by adding an option to send only the name of the application and no other information. Also to hide the OS user name.
For example, instead of sending
22:37:39
<attribute name="app_name" type="string">EXCEL</attribute>
<attribute name="os_username" type="string">my_os_username</attribute>
<attribute name="window_title" type="string">Microsoft Excel - MyFileName.xls</attribute>
<attribute name="end_time" type="string">2007-11-27
send this instead:
22:37:39</attribute>
<attribute name="app_name" type="string">EXCEL</attribute>
<attribute name="os_username" type="string">******</attribute>
<attribute name="window_title" type="string">Microsoft Excel - **********</attribute>
<attribute name="end_time" type="string">2007-11-27
If this feature to limit information sent to you is not added to RescueTime, then there is no way that I can use RescueTime at work. I would get busted if my company finds out I am sending out so much sensitive information. I understand that you promise not to sell this, but I prefer not to send this information on your servers in the first place.
</attribute>
6 people say
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?I definitely second this. There is absolutely no reason the os username needs to be known to RescueTime, and full window titles can fall under the the umbrella of "extremely sensitive information". -
Inappropriate?Wow. This could be a deal breaker. Love the app, but the window_title and os_username fields are not something I feel comfortable sending to your servers. -
Inappropriate?This is great feedback. We are currently working on features that would take advantage of the os_username and window_title information. However, we understand that some users may not want to use these features due to the sensitive nature of the data.
Before we implement these features, we will make the os_username and window_title optional data fields from within the data collectors. That way people who are concerned about having that data transmitted to the web service will have the ability to surpress it.
The second most requested feature enhancement is the ability to tell not only that an application was in use, but which document(s) were opened by that application. The window_title was the first step in gathering that information.
Another commonly requested feature is the ability to log time from different machines and/or accounts, which is what the os_username was going to help us do. Perhaps we could allow the user an option of using either the os_username or have a field in the preferences in the data collector that would allow a custom account name (computer1, mycomp, home, work, etc).
Again, thank you for the feedback - it is very important to us that people are comfortable with the information they send us.
2 people say
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Good response. :) I think just being able to turn those things off would be enough.
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Inappropriate?Limiting window_title on a per-application basis would be the most useful.
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Inappropriate?Hi, what is the progress on this?
I have uninstalled RescueTime and will install it back only when it is possible to make data fields such as os_username and window_title optional.
Could you give a time frame of when I can expect a version with this?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?I don't have a firm time frame for you at the moment, sorry... :(
We have prototyped the privacy options screen and trying to work through how to handle those options with some of the proposed features we want to roll out.
I will try to nail down a time frame soon and let you know.
Thanks -
Inappropriate?[In answer to your email]
Hi Tony,
Thank you for taking the time to reply via email, although in the end I managed to get this as a thread in the forum.
Knowing how much time I spend on each application is a good start, even if this is not broken down further. Do not underestimate this information (as it is the main information available in RescueTime at the moment anyway!), it has got some value on its own!
Concerning privacy issues, here are some examples of file names I would like to keep private: "due_diligence_companyA.doc" or "Action plan Sales November.xls" or "Lotus Notes - Compose: Market share company A 3.4% for the month of October". In fact, pretty much any file that I open at work is sensitive. I do not mean the content of the file, but the file name (or window name) in itself reveals pretty much a lot of information.
Still, I understand that you want to add more value through your interface, and go 1 step beyond just giving the time spent on each application. In this case, could you just not tag folders locally on the computer. For example, if I tag "folderA" as "work", "folderB" as "fun", then if I open a file burried in folderA, could RescueTime report (upload to your servers) only "work" instead of the actual file name? Same thing goes for OS name.
Best regard.
________________________________
> Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 10:20:56 -0800
> Subject: Re: RESCUETIME CONTACT FORM
>
> Hi there-
>
> (sorry for the delay in response-- we've been buried in emails!)
>
> We're collecting this information in anticipation of some upcoming features... For many applications (like Microsoft Word), understanding how much time you spend in the application just isn't very valuable and needs to be broken down a bit more... We're aiming to allow for breakdowns by document name and/or directory.
>
> We're VERY sensitive to privacy issues (which is why we expose what we're collecting in an XML format)... Can you tell me a scenario where a filename would be sensitive information? I suppose if someone were working on a "bankruptcy_announcement.doc" or somesuch, maybe?
>
> Your suggestion of "optional" collection features is a good one, however. Can't hurt to have a few checkboxes (with a firm announcement that you'll get a lot less value if you collect less data).
>
> Thanks for the great feedback!
>
> Cheers,
I’m confident
1 person says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Great points! That definitely strengthens the position for allowing this level of detail to be toggled.
I agree with you-- I think directory name is a LOT more useful than filename.
I’m thankful for the great feedback!
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Inappropriate?Hi,
you may be thankful for my feedback, but has anything been done about this? I un-installed Rescuetime more than 3 monthes ago, and I still waiting for an aswer from the development team (besides "wow, this is a great idea, etc.etc.")
I’m desperate for some news
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Inappropriate?I can say with pretty good authority (with graphs to back it up) that everyone here is working crazy amounts of hours and we are prioritizing the stuff that our users are asking for as best we can.
We JUST started rolling out some privacy features and there are more to come.
The first one that we just released is Whitelists, which addresses the most popular concern on this front. You can see details at http://www.rescuetime.com/whitelists
Next on the list is allowing users to NOT send OS Username and Window Title. These are scheduled for the next release, which is probably a week or two out.
We'll do our best to update these threads when we actually build features that speak to them, but (honestly) our best isn't going to be very good. If you'd like to track new features as they launch we ALWAYS blog about them at http://blog.rescuetime.com ... An RSS subscription there would do the trick.
Of course, giving us a poke here (like you just did) will work just fine too. Or, heck, you can call or email!
And, if you'd like to be an early tester on these features, we can always use 'em. Send an email to team @ rescuetime and you can be the first person to give it a try!
I’m confident
The company says
this answers the question
-
Inappropriate?Quote: "allowing users to NOT send OS Username and Window Title. These are scheduled for the next release, which is probably a week or two out."
If I read you well, this should have been out before 24 March. Did you finally release this, or is RescueTime still sending all this sensible information to your servers?
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Inappropriate?We have this feature included in the 1.0.3 build of RescueTime, which is in testing at the moment. Unfortunately we also have a hibernate/sleep issue that I've been trying to track down with that build so I haven't released it to anyone other than a few testers.
If you are interested, I'd love to get some additional people helping me test out that new build. If you want, send me an email to team@rescuetime.com with your RescueTime account email and I will forward you the build.
Thanks! -
Inappropriate?Thanks for your honest answer. No problem, as long as you let me know about issues you are stuggling with.
I prefer to wait thatyou flatten-out most problems before you release the first version. Sorry, I have no time to fool around with test versions at the moment. I'll just be patient and wait for the official release. But please, post a message here when it is released, I don't have the time to read through the developement blog.
Thanks.
I’m in wait & see mode...
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Inappropriate?Hi there-
Just wanted to drop a line and say that we have released a new version of the data collector with a wide variety of privacy options (including those mentioned above). Sorry for the delay on this!
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?Hi,
I installed rescue time and I must say that it does solve the privacy issue while keeping the interface straight forward and not bloated with options. Well done!
Still, I had something slightly different in mind. By checking "Do not record window titles", Rescue time only sends to the server the name of the app. As someone from you team suggested, there is more useful information than that.
For example, if I work with Microsoft Word, I may work on personal files, or work related files. I want to know the difference between the two.
As I am not confident sending to your servers the name on the files I work on, I would like the Rescue Time Data Collector to detect the category of file and then send that information to the server. In other words, instead of sending
window_title: 'unlisted'
I prefer
window_title: 'work'
or
window_title: 'personal'
Rescue Time Data collector uploads the data, then you make all the processing on the server. I prefer to make all the processing locally on my machine, and upload to the server only the processed information that I want to upload.
This requires tagging folders locally on the PC, not just defining tags on your server. Example:
- folder "D:\documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\Contracts" is "work"
- "D:\documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\Photos\Rome 2008"is "private"
- al other folders are "Other".
In fact, you already do this pretty well with websites and the whitelist. Rescue Time Data collector checks the site versus the whitelist and decides to upload the name or not, depending if it is in the list or not.
It would be nice if you could do the same for file and folder names (adding folder tagging).
Please give us more control over the data uploaded to your servers !
EMPLOYEE
EMPLOYEE
