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Could It Be? Adobe Hops Into Spy Game With Omniture
Written by Allen Stern - December 27, 2007
UPDATE December 28 - 7PM Eastern - Adobe has replied to the concerns
Dan over at UneasySilence has found some interesting screens inside of the Adobe CS3 applications. He notes, "When you launch a CS3 application the application pings out to what looks like an IP address - and internal IP address: 192.168.112.2O7."
Now any tech geek knows that looks like an internal address and that Adobe has always monitored who is using their software on the network to make sure everything is legit. In fact I remember back to working at an elementary school in Brooklyn in the early days and getting buzzed about reg issues on the network.
But if you look closely at the IP address above, the 2O7 part looks weird - turns out it's not the number two-hundred-seven but it's actually two-letter-O-seven and that domain is owned by Web analytics firm Omniture. It seems so spyware-ish to make it look to the ordinary geek that it's an internal address. In fact, many of the very evil phishing scams use these type of urls (bankofamerica.com vs. bank0famerica.com, etc.). I am not suggesting that Adobe is doing anything wrong, but it just seems out of character for the very much loved graphics manufacturer.
There is an opt-out on the Omniture site however I can't picture that it works within the CS3 application as all it does is place a cookie on my machine.
You know that most consumers will have no idea this tracking is going on behind the scenes and even if they do, it seems you need to go to the Omniture site to opt-out. So that means that the data will still be sent from the application.
So I ask, should Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) offer you the option to decline this tracking when you install CS3? Let's hope we hear from Adobe and their staff of Web evangelists on this matter soon.
Shame on Adobe, shame.
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here's a slightly expanded version of the comment I left on the authors site (which the author, Dan, has failed to approve even though he's posted stories since then):
It's just the welcome page, which has embedded flash, which, as another commenter on the story explained, uses 2o7 for flash usage statistics just like every flash app. Prove it to yourself, just check the "don't show again" on the welcome screen, quit, and restart. Boom, no Little Snitch alert for 2o7.
Much like the iPhone IMEI non-story put forward by this same site, uneasysilence, this story has been written with little research and with a trollish title so as to generate maximum digg and techmeme hits. I hope the Yahoo ads revenue is worth it for them. Personally I've lost a lot of respect for them, it used to be a better site before they started going for total diggbait.
Spare me.
Adobe (John Nack, John Dowdell, Doug Miller) is using the tin-foil hat label to obfuscate the intentions of the tracking code. This is a legally purchased retail product phoning home to report first installation/use along with specific OS and config details. The product manager knew about it from day one, the witless Omniture liaison knew about it before the meeting where it was vetted, and the developers knew about it before RTM.
There are no live links (or anything useful) added to the tracking flash found on the welcome screen. The purpose is obvious and the selected domain enforces suspicions about the seedy nature of this increasingly common practise. Look to previous versions of the product to see how unnecessary this was.
No one is accusing Adobe of phishing, theft, or operating black helicopters. Most are (rightly) upset by this undisclosed "opt-in" behaviour in an expensive stand-alone application.
P.S. I'm someone who actually clicks 'Yes', more often than not, when asked to provide anonymous usage data for product improvement. Try it (asking) some time.
This is definitely tracking of downloads (Launch file on desktop) tracking. Something that I have deployed myself to track desktop stats. It's good to hear that this is growing with other companies as it serves to be a better means of tracking than through server logs. Nothing to be too concerned about as it serves as a ping rather that tracking your session on your personal machine. As with flash this is standard tracking. It would be interesting to know if Adobe has figured out a way to track users using their applications....
But RE: Should Adobe offer you the option to decline this tracking when you install CS3?
I would say no, cause you're already being tracked through a ping when you complete an install, my guess is that Adobe is just tracking installs started and installs complete.
Can't believe that folks think this is so innocuous. Just came across this tidbit as I was updating my Peer Guardian. We have a volume license for CS3. Adobe the Nu MS, Apple??? A dude on the court queried a long time ago about "the slippery slope." If you're gonna F me, be kind enuff to ask. Absent minded mistake by Adobe execs??? To quote dude from HBO's The Wire, "shhhhhhhhhhiiiiiitttttttTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"