Users are looking for free alternatives to Audacity now that the company is collecting and sharing their personal data.
People joke about how “nobody has the time to read any privacy policies,” but if you don’t, it could be a threat to your privacy. It’s impossible to know the data that you allow a party to access, save or share.
Audacity just updated its privacy policies. As a result, users are venting their dismay on major social media platforms.
Audacity May Collect and Share Your Personal Data
Audacity, an open-source audio editor, has updated its Desktop Privacy notice with a new section about gathering and distributing personal data. FOSS Post, an independent publication, first discovered this and warned its readers to remove the “possible malware.”
The Desktop Privacy Notice states that Audacity could collect the following information for app analytics and improvement.
- Name and version of the OS on your computer
- Based on the IP address, user country
- CPU
- Non-fatal error codes or messages (i.e., Project did not open
- Breakpad MiniDump crash reports
Audacity claims that it will collect data necessary to enforce, prosecute and respond to authorities’ requests. This is a rather vague statement. The corporate says it can, for example, give any user data to its state regulators.
All of your personal data are stored on servers located within the European Economic Area (EEA). We may need to share your personal information with our Russian headquarters and our American counsel.
Audacity does not specify in the policy what quiet data it may share. This is especially concerning when considering that it could even be shared with “a buyer potential.”
This news quickly became a topic of discussion on the internet. According to the GetDayTrends tracker, the phrase “Audacity” is one of the top ten most popular Twitter phrases in the US, UK, Canada, Sweden, Sweden, and Puerto Rico.
PSA: If you use Audacity, the new owners just updated the terms of service so they can collect data on you, including for very open-ended "legal enforcement"; and then sell it to "potential buyers" all without your consent pic.twitter.com/2a36nAbEnU
— elle (@KrashHash) July 4, 2021
If data privacy is important to you, Audacity will still work for you. Some users on Twitter have confirmed that these changes will not affect you as long as your Audacity version isn’t older than 2.4.
Audacity Gets Acquired by Muse Group
You may be wondering why Audacity suddenly changed its tune. Audacity has been praised by many as the best free audio editing software available for many years. So why would it release such a controversial update suddenly?
It seems like new captains are pirating this ship. MusicTech published an article in May claiming that Muse Group, a newly established software company, had acquired Audacity as part of a deal. The financial details were not disclosed.
What Is Muse Group?
Muse Group was reportedly founded just a few days before Audacity acquired it. It also owns open-source notation software MuseScore and a guitar app Tonebridge.
