One cannot disable telemetry via the preferences if you run from source.
The preferences toggle the settings file at ~/.redhat/com.redhat.devtools.intellij.telemetry. build.gradle in a consumer plugin (ex. intellij-tekton) sets telemetry to "debug" via a system property and this system property overrides whatever setting is in the file.
If you want to disable telemetry you'd have to change or comment the following in build.gradle at intellij-tekton:
runIde {
systemProperties['com.redhat.devtools.intellij.telemetry.mode'] = 'debug'
}
This was discussed in discussed in #17 (comment)