Further Reply From Adobe On Spyware Concerns

Before I provide the update, I'd like to personally thank John Nack over at Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) for helping to figure out what the situation is regarding the Omniture tracking code inside of Adobe CS3 products. He replied to my post (along with others) during the Christmas holiday while I am sure the company CEO was fishing or surfing or whatever. If CEO Shantanu Narayen, is reading this, you sir should give John a bonus of some sort. He went above and beyond the call of duty during a holiday break.

Check out my previous posts to get more detail on the issue - which basically boils down to Omniture tracking code being injected into CS3 applications and the worse part is that they tried to hide it by using a domain name that looks like an IP address. Yesterday we got reports that the Omniture opt-out doesn't work. I said all along that I can't understand how it could work anyway being browser-based with a cookie.

John has posted a FAQ on the issue along with a technical note about the configuration.

Here is a snippit from the FAQ:

Q.: Why does Adobe use a server whose name is so suspicious-looking?
A.: I'm afraid the answer is that we don’t really know.  The fact is that this SWF tracking code already existed on the Macromedia side at the time the companies merged, and it was adopted without change by a number of products for CS3.  The people who wrote the code originally did not document why they used that server name, and we can’t find anyone who remembers.  I'm sorry we aren’t able to provide a more solid, definitive explanation.

Q.: Follow-on: Given that you can’t give a good reason why Adobe is using a server whose name is so suspicious, are you going to change the name?
A.: Absolutely.  We are working with Omniture on this right now, and will make this change as soon as we can.  (I don't know how long this will take, but will post here when I do.)

This is unacceptable for a publicly-traded company. Where's the documentation? And whomever was in charge of the team that made this decision, should be held responsible. I do appreciate that they are working towards changing the name - let's hope it happens quickly. I'd also like to see an update that offers me the ability to turn it off on install. That should be easy enough.