735444 - Telemetry warning in help -> about needs to be consistent with enabled/disabled telemetry state

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Telemetry, defect)

Description

[Théo Chevalier]

Since we added the warning message in Firefox about dialog in bug 701182 and bug 701184, the text is saying that Nightly/Aurora is sending automatically information to Mozilla. The aim of this message is to warn about telemetry enabled by default on Nightly and Aurora channels (bug 699806).

The issue is that even if the user disable telemetry on the pref pane, the message is still here, and is the same.

I think we should hide the message (Or maybe change it?) when telemetry is disabled for the following reasons:

- There is no reasons to claim "It automatically sends information..." when telemetry is disabled.

- The users who have disabled telemetry and still see the message may think it's still enabled because of the text.

Comment 1

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Theo, I see what you're getting at. WRT to Telemetry, you're correct that this message is inaccurate if the user has opted out of Telemetry. We can take a couple of approaches here:

1. We can fix the message in some way as you suggest. This may be as simple as inserting the work "may" in the text. i.e.

"It may automatically send test information back to Mozilla to help make Nightly better."

2. The message is not specific for Telemetry. We leave it alone and use it as a catchall for any data that we submit. 

After thinking about this a little bit I'm in favour of leaving the message as is (2). I don't like the idea of changing the message in the about dialog based on a user preference as I don't think this is standard practice. (The about dialog is pretty static in most cases.) This message will also be correct for the large majority of our user base.

Comment 2

[Théo Chevalier]

(In reply to Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] from comment #1)
> Theo, I see what you're getting at. WRT to Telemetry, you're correct that
> this message is inaccurate if the user has opted out of Telemetry. We can
> take a couple of approaches here:
> 
> 1. We can fix the message in some way as you suggest. This may be as simple
> as inserting the work "may" in the text. i.e.
> 
> "It may automatically send test information back to Mozilla to help make
> Nightly better."
> 
> 2. The message is not specific for Telemetry. We leave it alone and use it
> as a catchall for any data that we submit. 
> 
> After thinking about this a little bit I'm in favour of leaving the message
> as is (2). I don't like the idea of changing the message in the about dialog
> based on a user preference as I don't think this is standard practice. (The
> about dialog is pretty static in most cases.) This message will also be
> correct for the large majority of our user base.

Yeah, I think add a simple "may" could solve this. You're right saying that hiding it is not standard.

So can I add "may" to the patch in bug 728350 (for desktop) and to the patch in bug 702284 (for mobile), or you think it's better to keep it separate?

Comment 3

[Théo Chevalier]

As we decided, we will keep the current message.