Popularity Contest should be uninstallable

While popcon is installed by default, it is not enabled by default:

$ grep PARTICIPATE /etc/popularity-contest.conf
PARTICIPATE="no"

It is interesting how that it came to "yes" on my system.

Most popularity-contest directories have been created on my system on 2008-05-01.
In the default file:
/usr/share/popularity-contest/default.conf
it is set to "no",

As I do not recall setting it that way, I assume it has been installed this way.
I think this has been done all in one Ubuntu release, as there is a sharp increase in the date graph at:
http://popcon.ubuntu.com/
Unfortunately, the date scale is unreadable there.
Apparently there are a lot of systems where it came to "yes" on that date.

Again: the issue is that the setting is apparently yes for quite a few people, and that it cannot be configured in the GUI.

Unless we can track down the cause of this, we'll need to close this bug report.

Cause is in the upgrader of the release where the jump is in the graph.
Only somebody with access to the raw data can find the exact date, and thus the Ubuntu upgrade that has caused it.
Who has access to this data, and thus can help debug ?

Thank you for taking the time to make Ubuntu better. Since what you submitted is not really a bug, or a problem, but rather an idea to improve Ubuntu, you are invited to post your idea in Ubuntu Brainstorm at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ where it can be discussed, voted by the community and reviewed by developers. We also appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but this appears to be a "regular" (non-security) bug. I have unmarked it as a security issue since this bug does not show evidence of allowing attackers to cross privilege boundaries nor directly cause loss of data/privacy. Please be careful when reporting bugs in future when selecting the 'Security Problem' option. Thank you again.

I agree that it is may not be security (even though it may inadvertently report information that the system administrator does not wish to reveal). Even though, not being security bug, does not render the bug itself invalid.

To do this would be a simple change in debian/control to drop it down to Recommends in ubuntu-standard. Perhaps there is a reason for it being the way it is, hence the explanation above, i.e. please open an idea on Ubuntu Brainstorm. If enough people get behind this idea it can be implemented. It is preferred to do it this way since it is a change to the default options of an installed system.
I have marked this Wishlist, Confirmed for now, but again, please see Brainstorm or alternatively one of the Ubuntu IRC channels, perhaps someone higher up in the chain of command can give you a better explanation or push this through.
Thank you and good luck :)

Please make the application uninstallable. For me it feels fishy like pre-installed bloatware on windows computers.

I don't see a reason not to demote the dependency as a recommends instead.

@Lenin I'm not sure why you changed the status to "Fix Released". As far as I can see the ubuntu-standard still depends on popularity-contest on Ubuntu 19.10. The same applies for the development branch of Ubuntu 20.04: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/focal/arm64/ubuntu-standard/1.443

Could you please change the status back to Triaged to indicate that this bug is unfixed?

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/popcon-to-be-removed-from-the-standard-seed/17238

Currently invalid bug as of 2022 - https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/ubuntu-standard