The underlying problem is that Atlassian feels like they need to apply General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is a European Union Law, to everyone.
From a short-term business POV, this makes a lot of sense. After all, the EU market is fairly large. However, The UK is leaving the EU because of it's bureaucratic overreach, while countries (e.g. Hungary and Poland) are thinking about leaving; often ignoring it's decrees. Even polls in Finland and Belgium show the distrust that ordinary people have of the EU.
Furthermore, is there any reason people outside the EU shouldn't be able to turn off this "feature"? I have a deep suspicion that the GDPR can be interpreted by over-zealous power-hungry bureaucrats to mean that the software can't be sold in the EU unless this "privacy" feature *can't* be turned off. So Atlassian would need to support two entirely separated products. The business cost of that might be prohibitive. It would certainly cut deeply into profits, and the stockholders would howl. So Atlassian is as helpless as we are.
Wait, did we rescue Europe from Nazism and Communism just to get the EU? Sheeze...
At an even deeper issue, in play here in the U.S. and I'm sure in Australia and NZ, is privacy. A few decades ago, you could be a dog on the internet, and nobody could know. Now, it's fairly easy to find anyone and know a ton of information about them -- in seconds. So naturally, people are nervous about that. What they don't realize is that privacy is *not* a right. A right is inalienable. You have no privacy in a family, you have very little privacy in a small town. But in both cases, you still have a right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The loss of privacy is OK, because while information is power, it flows both ways- you can see who is watching you and vice versa. The difficult technical problem is how to make sure that happens in virtual space. That is what the EU bureaucracy (and most of the public) does not understand. They should be made to read David Brin's "Transparent Society".
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