Is Eudora Snooping on You?

Nobody likes a snoop. So when you find that one of your programs communicates with a server on the Internet without first notifying you, you might get a little concerned.

That's the situation we currently find with the Eudora 4.3 e-mail client. And while the company that makes the program, Qualcomm, says no "personal information" is being sent to their servers, data is being sent from the program to a Qualcomm server, and most users probably don't know it.

The Feature Matrix

People who download the popular mail client are probably familiar with the three levels of the program: Sponsored, Paid, and Light. As described by Eudora, Sponsored mode is "free with ads." Paid mode "costs money, [with] no ads," and Light mode is "free, [with] fewer features." So if you don't want to pay for the program, you can see Web-based ads or pick the Light version with no ads at all. End of story, right?

Well, not so fast. Recently a reader sent us an e-mail about an odd behavior he noticed while using Eudora. First, he tried out the full-featured, Sponsored version. Then he tested the free Light version, and found that it had all the features he needed.

When he connected to the Internet, he noticed something strange. The program was contacting a Eudora server, even though he was using the ostensibly ad-free Eudora Light.

"Eudora was clear about its fetching ads in the 'full-featured, free, paid-by-ads' mode, and I have no problem with that," the reader told us. "But the fact that after choosing the limited-feature mode the program continued connecting was totally unexplained and probably goes on undetected by the majority of users."