Is it unethical to send data to myself once a customer installs my software?

You could always just have the installer open up a "Thank you for installing our product" page that's hosted on your web server. Since this page would normally only be hit after an install it should give you a decent indicator without being evil.

P.s. Before anyone hounds me on this please note that Firefox does this directly after an install.

In my opinion, yes, sending any data back that isn't authorized is unethical. Most software will prompt you to ask if it's OK to send back anonymous usage data. You could also track downloads and guestimate how many of them are actually installed.

There are a number of software products that gather data from the user but they all get the user's consent before sending any information. I suggest you do the following:

1. Ask the users to register, this way you will know some basic information like (roughly) when the software was installed.
2. If you need more complex/interesting usage statistics then make this a feature that users can easily turn off. Some people are not comfortable sending any data to you, Eclipse does this very well, the first time it wants to gather some usage statistics it allows the user to turn off the feature right away.
3. Finally , which ever way you implement this feature ensure that the users can see exactly what data you are collecting and sending and can choose to not do so.

If you do this in this correctly way you will gather some data in a way that does annoy your users or intrude on their privacy.

Just popup before installation:

"If you click Yes, the date and time the software was installed will be sent to us via your Internet connection. We would appreciate it a lot."

Let "Yes" be the default option and avoid the popup if there is no Internet connection available.

Doing it behind the scenes is unethical in my opinion.

you will always have to ask before calling home with anything, no matter how harmless you think it is.

kind of like you should always ask permission before putting a shortcut on a desktop.

If you want to do that — ask user permission.

Some companies just have automatic check for updates feature.

Only do this if your application uses the network as a primary function, otherwise a user will get weirded out by their standalone application asking to get internet access through their firewall.

Also: If you add in-line updates to your software, or ask to check for software updates periodically, you can easily log this information.

this is kind of tricky, if u are getting the information about the software only; without identifying the user, perhaps it might be passed as alright.

just think of google, i know it never gets installed on your system, but chrome again is a google product, which i believe probes ur google searches to give relevant advertisements. what is reading a cookie, is it any different from reading information from your computer.

also i have seen relevant advertising poping up in yahoo mail when i search for shopping stuff on google. they for sure are reading some info on your computer or browser session.

I think its ok to send the info from software, as long as u have no way to identify from what user it is coming from.

I don't see any particular areas of unethical or illegality except for this: My software, my computer, none of your business if I want to install it or just have it sitting in an installer.

Although I think a convincing argument could be made that it literally is your business to know about your software's installs.

Best route is simply to request to send 'anonymous usage information'.

How many of you windows users tell windows its OK to phone home and verify that your copy is genuine?

0.

There are a lot of high and mighty my-computer-is-my-domain answers here, and the bottom line is while its rude, its not against the law. Rather, its commonplace. Stick a disclosure in the EULA and you're good to go.

It is unethical to hide your collection of usage statistics.

That said, almost every website has a TON of personally identifiable information in the form of web logs that are almost never used to their "fullest potential for evil"

To ethically collect your install count just ask the users to activate the product on first usage or ....

Provide something useful! Prompt the user to check for updates on first use.

This approach IS ethical, can get you better and more relevant data (you can put voluntary forms together) and allows you to make a value exchange.

I think the circumstances also play a part.

If the app is a free app and the developers find that knowing each time an app is installed then as long as the user is told then most users wouldn't have an issue with that.

If the app contains sensitivie data (i.e. financial or credentials) and you notice the app calling home then that would freak most users out and wonder what else is being sent.

Also another point is having it call home each time the app is installed doesn't really tell the developers much, what if a user reinstalls the app or the operating system? What if the call home is denied by security software or their computer isn't even connected?

In my opinion if you can't collect meaningful useful stats then is it really worth collecting them to analyze them?