I do not think anyone assumes he intends to do something malicous and I agree that there are better approaches if he did, but ultimately no one knows for sure and if he does not there is especially no good reason to not have an opt-out option 
Some people are sensitive about this (far too few as far as I am concerned), why not give them the option ? It is better for the users and better for him (risk of potential lawsuit, even if that is small, goodwill, number of users) without him losing relevant information (other than active users, which is not all that relevant to begin with…)
That is enough on that topic from me though, ultimately it is his decision, he is aware of the pros and cons.
I initially joined this because someone apparently was threatening to release a version that does not send data if he did not provide an option. No matter how I feel about him not providing that option, I strongly disagree that this gives anyone the right to publish a copy where the data collection has been removed, it is still slipperypete’s tool (the nick is kinda ironic given this discussion…)