OPEN AUDIO EDITOR HAS BECOME SPYWARE CODE

Ray told Motherboard that Muse Group was expecting a reaction to the change, but that it was “overblown.” He emphasized that user data is not sold and claimed that the only reason the company would check an IP address is if it was detected engaging in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.

Meanwhile, numerous other people on Twitter described Audacity as possible “spyware,' with one viral blog post encouraging users to remove the software. Many Audacity users expressed outrage online following the move, with some arguing that collecting IP addresses from an offline app is unnecessary and wades into the territory of “commercial-company-data-tracking fuckery,” according to one Reddit poster. While data will be stored on servers in the European Union, the notice states that Audacity is “occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA.” The notice explains that the desktop version of the app collects a user’s operating system name and version, IP address, as well as crash reports, for the purpose of “improving our app.” It also notes that the app will collect “ata necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities’ requests.”

In a phone call with Motherboard, Ray said that the company is introducing a new contributor license so that it can distribute Audacity on a wider array of channels, including Apple’s App Store, but that the contributor license will not replace its open source GPL license.Īudacity posted the privacy notice to its website on July 2.

OPEN AUDIO EDITOR HAS BECOME SPYWARE CODE

According to a GitHub post by Muse Group Head of Strategy Daniel Ray, Audacity will “remain free and open source” and the code will continue to be made available under an open-source license.

Open audio editor has become spyware