Altium Privacy Policy - worth reading

I have to say Shabaz, they look fairly standard terms to me in that I expect any website which you use to purchase something could well do the same (read section 5 of Amazon's policy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GX7NJQ4ZB8MHFRNJ#GUID-A440AA65-7F7E-4134-8FA8-842156F43EEE__SECTION_5E308B5A0A524A979CB1472572F45223.)  I expect they have your credit card details if you've bought directly off them; ditto addresses and phone numbers.  The "other third parties" is interesting as they aren't at all clear on what data they would share with them and it might be along the lines of if that third party provides a service you buy through Altium.  Who knows??  I think you've bought stuff through Alibaba - I bet their privacy standards are pretty poor in actuality if not in print. 

I recently purchased a 3D printer and was looking at a Bambu Labs device.  They require EVERYTHING to go through the cloud and capture EVERYTHING you do including your models.  I didn't buy one, that put me off as much as anything, but I rather suspect privacy is a thing of the past once you transact online.  Depressing really.

Hi Andrew,

I think it's worse, because they mention the personal data (including e-mail, phone, and card data) can be shared with any third party, i.e. completely open to any org they wish to share with, whereas others such as Amazon and AliExpress qualify it and don't mention providing it to third parties with no restriction. Maybe in practice the difference may be slight. I just previously assumed that Altium would have tried to limit the extent of firms to which they would share personal data in their policy, but they didn't : (

I'm still learning how to do 3D, and have been using the JLCPCB printing service for now, since I don't know enough or do enough 3D. What printer did you get in the end, just out of curiosity? 

shabaz said:

I think it's worse, because they mention the personal data (including e-mail, phone, and card data) can be shared with any third party

They put it in a way like we sign a blank check for our data. horrible!

I got a Creality K1 Max.  It has worked well out of the box for the most part with really good prints.  It’s the first one I’ve ever used so it’s all new.  The extruded was blocked on arrival (  ) so that took some finagling and of course I didn’t know if it was me or the machine.  There are no instructions of course!  Anyway, I soon got to grips with it.  I’m now engrossed in Fusion 360 to build my own models.  Easier for me now I’m retired; I would struggle to find the time to make reasonable progress if I was working.

Yeah, there's no human touch. They should sack their lawyer. It's one thing to try to protect themselves from all liability, but I bet a decent lawyer would not be able to sleep at night thinking they had written a privacy policy that treated the firm's customers in this way. A better approach would have been for their lawyer to train Altium management on why the policy would restrict third parties and that method/process xyz would be how Altium should ensure customer data is handled properly and not given to any third party. Rather than give Altium management free rein like they have currently in the policy.

I have been using FreeCad. I'm beginner-level, but can make some basic objects etc. I don't know the differences with Fusion 360. I suspect FreeCad may not have as many features, but I figured I would not want to make overly complex stuff anyway, just occasional brackets or miscellaneous widgets.

I hope Fusion works well for you, if you ever need to give FreeCad a shot, I can ask for the Zoom recording of a FreeCad beginners talk by a super-helpful guy called Chris, that helped me loads. I hope it was recorded. That 3D printer looks impressive!

I guess the cat and mouse game is on.

How to get what you want from companies (goods and services) without giving them everything they want (money and information).

Insatiable AI is going to do some extreme things with information (or is already doing them). We can only hope they don't want to kill the goose...

I expect there will be a large market for solid surrogate identities to compartmentalize what companies or even governments can see...

My first self-created model in Fusion 360, a trophy for the extended family quiz:

Pretty pleased with myself given two or three hours of YouTube tutorials.  I've designed the parts to be 3D printable, so the star is printed in two halves, ditto the globe with supporting pegs to ensure it fits back together properly, ditto the pole that the globe and the star attach to; and the nameplates are separate but are mapped to the base surface which obviously has different horizontal and vertical planes.  I'd say that Fusion 360 is a complex piece of software that is reasonably easy to get to grips with if you can find the right, up to date tutorials.