Many people use the Audacity free audio editor to edit and merge audio files of meetings, podcasts and other soundscapes (I hope with the appropriate permission of course). The very popular open-source software is used by more than 100 million people worldwide.
In its revised privacy notice, there are reports that data can be shared with its Russian-based infrastructure company WSM, and people are questioning why data needs to be shared.
Interestingly, at the time of writing this, the link to Audacity’ privacy notice does not work, so perhaps they are changing it again.
It does raise a few important questions:
- Do you read the privacy notices of the software and apps you use (you really ought too – remember the torch app that demanded access to your contacts)?
- What should we expect from free software (the old rule that you get what you pay for still applies)?
Once I can actually see the privacy notice, we may return to this story.