New outrage from Adobe!

[hazel]

I learned about this through the ODF authors mailing list. It's part of the EULA for Acrobat Reader X:

"7. Connectivity and Privacy. You acknowledge and agree to the following:

7.1 Use of PDF Files. When you Use the Software to open a PDF file that
has been enabled to display ads, your Computer may connect to a website
operated by Adobe, an advertiser, or other third party. Your Internet
Protocol address (“IP Address”) is sent when this happens. The party
hosting the site may use technology to send (or “serve”) advertising or
other electronic content that appears in or near the opened PDF file.
The website operator may also use JavaScript, web beacons (also known as
action tags or single-pixel gifs), and other technologies to increase
and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and to personalize
advertising content. Your communication with Adobe websites is governed
by the Adobe Online Privacy Policy found at
Adobe - Online Privacy Policy (“Adobe Online Privacy Policy”). Adobe
may not have access to or control over features that a third party may
use, and the information practices of third party websites are not
covered by the Adobe Online Privacy Policy."

This makes PDFs unsafe to use unless you read them with an open-source browser. I suppose most Linux users do, but if you have friends who use Windows, you might like to warn them about this threat.

[jayd512]

While I have no proof to base this on, I'm thinking that this article might be related to the same type of, ahem, services.

Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged | Epicenter*| Wired.com

And apparently, it doesn't matter what browser you use.

[MikeTbob]

Thanks for posting this Hazel, I just unmerged/uninstalled it from my system. I had no idea that was in there.

[cousinlucky]

" If It's Free It's Probably Dangerous " ~ a quote from my Grandfather!!

[elija]

Good news everybody Kissmetrics changes policy

[hazel]

Thanks for posting this Hazel, I just unmerged/uninstalled it from my system. I had no idea that was in there.

Oh Mike! Didn't your parents tell you never to sign a contract without reading the small print?

[MikeTbob]

Oh Mike! Didn't your parents tell you never to sign a contract without reading the small print?

=-)
Yes. My bad. I'm pretty sure I have seen the old (Windows) small print but I don't think it had that "clause".

[oz]

Sometimes, it seems like just enough small print is added to contracts to make sure nobody wants to bother with reading it.

[sgosnell]

The Ghostery extension for Firefox might help with this. It supposedly disables trackers from websites. I don't use the Adobe reader, preferring Evince, so I can't say for sure if Ghostery works on Adobe Reader.

[MikeTbob]

Well, I am using Ghostery but I still did not want that software on my machine regardless. I can't even remember why I installed it, I usually use xpdf.I can't say whether Ghostery worked on Adobe Reader or not, hopefully it did.