Article: zorin-os-privacy-concerns

https://itsfoss.com/zorin-os-privacy-concerns/

Artyom Zorin addresses a bit of Paranoia about the Zorin OS Census.
A bit of paranoia is Good for society. Skepticism and critical thinking are also essential for a healthy society.

I agree that an Opt-Out option would be helpful, but you can also see how it would defeat the purpose of the census. A developer has a Need To Know about how many users are actively using a product. Opting out would skew those numbers.

Is it necessary? The amount of Downloads is already a documented figure. Perhaps that is also skewed by those who download multiple times for a variety of reasons and the Team Zorin wants a more accurate figure of how many people are actually Using the Operating System Regularly.

Do I personally think that Zorin O.S. Census is spyware that is cataloging personal data?
No, I do not. A standard ping wouldn't carry a packet large enough to give significant data. The evidence presented in source code demonstrates that user information is not being extracted or logged.

Can you add this comment to the YouTuber who raised this in the first place? He was looking at people in China as an example or other draconian states that could identify location of a 'miscreant'.

I have learned the internet has no end to conspiracy hypotheses.

No 'conspiracy' on this front - BBC only just covered the 'education' camps for the 'Han' people in China. Was covered by Channel 4 investigative reports before the BBC, or possibly even Al Jazeera (English). Al Jazeera is a great channel for learning what is really happening in the wider world.