Why does fpsaud contact websites I've visited (even non-adobe websites)? Does Adobe advertise that Flash tracks users actions?

[aaronm97550419]

Why does fpsaud contact websites I've visited (even non-adobe websites)?  Does Adobe advertise that Flash tracks users actions?

[_maria_]

Hi aaronm97550419,

I'm assuming you're on a Mac system.  fpsaud is the Background Update daemon on OS X and it only contacts the Adobe server to check if an update is available.  This only happens if you are enrolled in Background Updates.  If you're not, then the daemon does nothing. There is no tracking involved and it does not contact any other websites.

--

Maria

[johnyjharris]

There is no tracking involved and it does not contact any other websites.

Then why is my network monitor telling me fpsaud has sent and received data from b.scorecardresearch.com?

From the scorecardresearch.com website:

ScorecardResearch, a service of Full Circle Studies, Inc., is part of the comScore, Inc. market research community, a leading global market research effort that studies and reports on Internet trends and behavior. ScorecardResearch conducts research by collecting Internet web browsing data and then uses that data to help show how people use the Internet, what they like about it, and what they don’t.

[_maria_]

fpsaud is the Background Update daemon and only contacts Adobe servers.  If you have evidence indicating otherwise, please share the network logs with us to investigate further.  You can upload your network logs to cloud.acrobat.com/send using the instructions at How to share a document and post (or private message me) the link to the uploaded file.

[Karlos3Eleven]

Probably because Adobe is a monopoly who has all it's unsuspecting customers over a barrel and thinks it can do whatever it pleases with their data, including selling it to third parties.

[Simone5CC9]

Aaron,

'fpsaud' inserted itself in my Mac, without my permission. I removed it from Settings/Security & Privacy/Full Disk/ by looking for it in Applications, then throwing it in the Bin and deleting it permanently. Then, I went back to Settings/Security & Privacy/Full Disk, clicked on it, then clicked on 'MINUS' to remove it from there, so that it lost access to my account. 

[jeromiec83223024]

I'm going to lock this thread from 2015.  If you have an actual technical issue, please post a new topic.  

Just for completeness, the Flash Player System Administrator's Guide describes the auto-update mechanism and related processes in excruciating detail. 

https://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/flash_player_admin_guide.html