[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Every programmer would like to have the program send info home on its useage and problems (Ive been there) but I get the impression that Illwinter purposely didnt do that. All this does is a key check of its own software. I have trouble considering that to be in the Category of "spying".

Yeah, I phrased that badly. I didn't mean to imply that key checking was spying -- it was more a generic concern.

'Course, they also get an IP address, which may be of more concern to some people. For example, I have a vanity domain, and my Dom2 machine is in that domain. It wouldn't be hard to imagine Bad Guys (not Illwinter) could take that IP address, notice that it didn't belong to an ISP, conclude that it was private, and decide to hassle the owner listed in the whois databases, which gets them not only a name, but a mailing address and phone number. Just what spammers and marketroids want -- a real name, address, and some demographic info: plays computer games (subtype strategy), has a vanity domain; probably a geek.

But I don't usually worry about that sorta thing.

Keeping track of usage is another issue, at least in some contexts. My employers worry about that kind of thing, cause it could reveal information useful to our competitors. I kinda doubt I'd care, but I'm not sure.