I am not a part of the TechTracker development team, but asked many similar questions prior to its official debut and will try to address your concerns as best as possible.
1.) No. The index is uploaded to Cnet's servers for analysis (determining what software is installed, out of date, etc.), but it is not made publicly available.
2.) It can, if there is a specific flaw in the version you have installed, but the risk is minimal. And since TechTracker does not make your results public, the risk is averted.
3.) I would consider Cnet trustworthy and the risk minimal, but yes, there is a slight privacy concern since the information is being sent elsewhere.
4.) Cnet does not distribute user-specific information to third parties. Rather, if they do choose to use the information for business activities, they do so in aggregate form. Thus, they analyze the results from all of TechTracker's users and then tell the third party of important statistics, such as "95% TechTracker users have Internet Explorer installed, but 69% have another browser installed as well." (Example only; not factual statistics.) Your name, email address, computer specifics, etc. are not freely shared.
Hope this helps,
John
just looked at your tech tracker app. it looks great!
have a question though. you are indexing my machine and building a webpage that shows all the products I have on my machine.
- the index that is built, is that shared with anyone. don't mind banner advertising because it is good app.
- but don't know if I want everyone in the world know what I have installed on my machine. wouldn't knowing all the apps I have loaded on my machine make it easier for someone to compromise my system?
- what I am saying is that if the index was snitched (even from you guys) that would be a lot of critical information.
- and if you guys <give the index> to other people directly so they can use that information first hand to market to me - I didn't just give them the info about that one specific product that they want to sell to me...but <they all the products if have in the index>
- so if the 3rd party lost my index I would be stuck. eventhough everything you guys did was great!
please help me understand... so I can figure out what happens to the index, how it is used and who has access to it. already read your privacy page that stuff all makes sense.
* now I just want to understand about my index from techtracker.
thank you and that is a great app!

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