I'm very, very close to finishing my first real program with MMF2. As I near the finish line, I've been pondering the issue of monitoring user installations of my program. Copy protection isn't a focal point of this issue (that's a whole separate can of worms...and thread). I'm more concerned with just receive a small bit of information identifying that a specific serial has been used to install the program. I assume this will let me monitor if a purchased license serial is being abused and shared. As the title suggests, I'm curious about the methods, ethics and practicality of doing this.
I was thinking of linking the email object with a junk email address and having it shoot me an email with the serial used and possible non-identifiable machine information (such as what version of Windows they are running). I would of course have this fact advertised in the terms of use with the program. What do you guys think? Does such a thing seem at all shady? If I see someone is sharing their license left and right I could contact that customer and tell them I am aware of their misuse and hopefully deter them from continuing. I wonder if such a thing is even practical or worthwhile.
To put things in perspective, my program is geared towards a specific educational market, not gamers. As such, it's easy for the program to end up on every computer in a school. I think an official institution like that would be likely to comply with my notifying them that they have been misusing a license.
I'm curious what people think and what has been done in the past.
