"heartbeat crap", as you call it, is part of CCleaner telemetry -- it helps Piriform to understand how CCleaner product is used, how many users use it, how often, which options they use, and which are not used. Every big software company (Microsoft, Adobe, ...) uses telemetry to improve their product. Heartbeat was introduced in CCleaner version 4.18+ in 2014, so this isn't something new. CCleaner's team really needs to understand how the product is used, otherwise they focus on some functionality which are not used by users -- how they can find it out? This is why telemetry exists.