‘Audacity 3.0 is spyware’
As of version 3.0, Audacity is no longer a hot recommendation. The open source audio editing software has a new owner and a new approach: the privacy terms reveal that it collects all kinds of data from users and sends it to Russia. The data is also shared with external parties. Since May, Audacity has been in the hands of Muse Group, the company behind Ultimate Guitar, MuseScore and Tonebridge.
After the acquisition, various changes were made to the support documents and to the privacy policy. On June 2, additions were made about personal data. For example, the operating system, country, IP address and error codes are recorded.
The IP addresses are stored for a day, but according to Fosspost that is enough for governments to trace a user. The personal data is stored in the European Economic Area, but may also be forwarded to the head office in Russia and an external legal consultancy in the US where appropriate. Your data may also be shared with a long list of external parties, such as advisors and potential buyers, regulators and third parties.
For Fosspost, it's reason enough to use the software ‘spyware’ to name. Something else has also changed: previously the software was suitable for all ages, now for 13 years and older. In doing so, Audacity violates the GPL license under which it is released. There have been voices on Reddit and GitHub to create a derivative (fork) based on Audacity's open source code, one that does not collect data.