In reply to Vova Feldman.

Hey @Victor, thanks for joining the conversation. Of course I'm not Google (yet!) :-) If you think about it, when a platform is so customizable like WordPress (which we love), any plugin in the WordPress repository can create "opportunities for hackers". Today, all the data-capturing-flows are different. Every developer that collects data does it in his way (it's the wild-wild-west). And in most cases, the messaging is not clear and transparent enough to the user. I've seen examples like "Get 20% discount on our premium products for tracking," without even explaining what is data is being monitored.

What we are trying to do is to standardize that process following the repo guidelines religiously, making sure it's done "by the book".

With regards to "front end" vs. "backend" tracking, I'm sorry to disappoint you but you can easily track the user by assigning their unique ID (https://davidsimpson.me/2014/04/20/tutorial-send-user-ids-google-analytics/) which could be later mapped to the email from your DB. And if not GA, then Mixpanel, and if not Mixpanel then Kissmetrics, and so on...

The current interactions between plugin authors to users are happening when there are issues (which is great). BUT, most of the users simply uninstall the plugin and not initiate a support ticket/question. Moreover, sole-developers don't have the resources to consume all the support, and aggregated view of the problems is a very convenient solution to figure out the top issues. Let's say that I would like to add namespaces to my new plugin version, how would I know how many users are in risk still using PHP 5.2? Without tracking PHP versions, it would be impossible. And that's just one use-case.

I already mentioned it in one of the responses here, but wouldn't it be awesome if, in a case of a major security leak, the plugin developer could interact with you to tell you when the patch is ready? I would love to have that.

Like any data in the world, if it goes to the wrong hands it can be abused. But I strongly believe in my fellow plugin developers--we are the "right hands." And based on personal acquaintance with the WP developers community, the data will be used to improve the ecosystem (at least by the most).