On 21/08/2020 14:01, Mike McClain wrote:
I took a look at ~/.local/share/.recently-used.xbel and see that
not only is it tracking what I do but claims to be the property of
freedesktop.org. Is there any way to see if this is being sent to them
and who might they be selling this info to?
It's bad enough that Google and so many others care to spy on us
but it's really uncomfortable to think my own computer is doing it.
This is worse than Big Brother.
This file records your most recently used local files. It is used to
populate the "Recent Files" lists in many applications. It is not sent
to anyone unless you are syncing your home directory with a cloud
service. Every href in my ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel starts with
"file:///" (a local absolute file URL).
freedesktop.org is the organisation that maintains standards for
filesystem layouts and some configuration file formats so that different
applications and Linux distributions can use the same directory
structure, launchers, and so on, to make life easier for users and
application developers. They never receive user data. The tag <metadata
owner="http://freedesktop.org";> in recently-used.xbel just means that
they define the meaning of the enclosed tags.
Kind regards,
--
Ben Caradoc-Davies <b...@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/>
New Zealand
