Annoying agents
Customers may not have any sure way of knowing what information update agents retrieve and transmit, so they may be left to rely on vendors' assurances that only necessary update information is collected. If you're a trusting consumer, you may be at risk when sneaky vendors use the back door to surreptitiously extract and analyze information in your computer--your Internet browsing habits or PC configuration.
Though application vendors in every category use auto-updates, game vendors seem to stand out for their stealthy data-collection practices. For example, Verant Interactive, a division of Sony Online Entertainment, was collecting information about additional applications running on users' computers while they were playing its online game EverQuest: The Scars of Velious. Confronted with evidence collected by technically savvy players using network sniffers--and anticipating a flood of angry responses from its customers--Verant changed its policy. "It really woke us up," says Verant's COO, John Smedley. "We have now opted to walk a straighter path."
Similarly, the online game site Battle.net, operated by Blizzard Entertainment, was snooping into players' PCs to retrieve key configuration information, such as players' names, browsers, and e-mail addresses, as well as files from competing gaming Web sites. Like Verant, Blizzard said that it was all a misunderstanding and that the purpose was to improve customer service.
Even if they are not used for secretive data collection, update agents can irritate users. For example, Microsoft Windows Me prompts users to launch the update agent so often that it becomes a distraction. In addition, when the agents misbehave, as did the one in Intuit's QuickBooks, they can really drag down performance: Intuit's agent was designed to run at predefined intervals ranging from once a day to once a week when the computer was connected to the Web. However, a bug in the code caused it to run as often as once an hour.
"This is new stuff," admits Intuit's vice president of technology, Paul English. "We're learning about the problems with it, and we're learning how users perceive it." Intuit's research revealed, not surprisingly, that users want to know what's going on. QuickBooks 2001 includes enhanced disclosure of Intuit's update policies and practices.
"One of the most important aspects of privacy protection is transparency of information collection," says Andrew Shen, a policy analyst with the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC). "That is, a data collector must tell the customer what information will be collected and how it will be used. Auto-update features and cookies, while convenient, allow companies to collect more info than consumers expect to provide or is necessary to update software."
But what can you do if you don't trust your vendor?
Great, now how about telling us what we can do to block the invaders out of our PC's??
It seems to me that you are full on about warning us in a sensational manner then leaving us hanging!!