Advertisement popup on launch!?

February 20, 2019 07:41

Upon the second launch of the new version of Luminar 3 (3.0.2, build 3051, Mac) I got a popup with an advertisement. Don't do this in paid software, ever.

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15 comments

Anastasia Davis

February 20, 2019 11:05
Hi Jorick! Please note that this is a contest organized by Skylum, that is why it was displayed in the app.
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Jorick Schram

February 20, 2019 11:23
Contest or advertisement, it's not acceptable. You should use your social channels and blog for these kind of outings and not force it upon people that use the software as a modal popup that first needs to be dismissed before being able to get any work done.
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Anders Svensson

February 20, 2019 13:12

Edited
It doesn't matter that Skylum organized this, I didn't pay for adware or contestware or socialware or whatever you want to call it. This has nothing to do with the purpose of the application.
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Anders Svensson

February 20, 2019 14:08
Btw, I got the same popup in Luminar 2018 as well.

Nastia, this obviously means that Luminar is communicating with Skylum servers, and that's also not something I expect of a standalone imaging application after it's been licensed. What information is Luminar communicating to Skylum? Is it sending usage information as well? (Which has at least been hinted at in another post.)
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Jorick Schram

February 20, 2019 15:55

Edited
Since @Anders mentioned it, I've checked the connections that my instance of Luminar 3 uses:

172.217.20.110 fra02s28-in-f14.1e100.net
136.243.18.236 static.236.18.243.136.clients.your-server.de (stats-api.skylum.com)
31.13.91.2 edge-star-shv-01-ams3.facebook.com (facebook graph)
172.217.17.110 www.google-analytics.com
46.101.219.241 auth.macphun.com

Facebook graph and Google analytics... really? How is this even required for a functioning app? Perhaps you forgot to disable the debugging for the production build?

Even though you mention to use analytics in your privacy disclaimer, you also mention you should be able to turn off notifications from within the product (https://skylum.com/legal#marketing) which is currently impossible.
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Jacques Demers

February 20, 2019 15:47
I agree with everyone. I don't need and don't want to receive any advertisement or contest or anything from Skylum when launching the application.
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Roman

February 20, 2019 15:54
Thank you for your questions. We are happy to answer them.

All your personal data collected from Skylum are your email and IP. Necessary for helping you in the case of a program crash. We also collect impersonal analytics about program usage. All described in our user agreements.

Could you please check out our Product licenses and terms of use.

https://skylum.com/legal#how-we-use-your-personal-data
https://skylum.com/legal#when-you-use-our-products

If you have more questions, we are happy to help you.

Thanks in advance!
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Anders Svensson

February 20, 2019 17:10
That's certainly more invasive than I expected. There is no mention of this in the installation process, and as I understand GDPR in the EU consent to this kind of collection has to be explicit. I also see no way of opting out, or where might I find that?
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Jacques Demers

February 20, 2019 19:40
@Roman Pylypenko I would also like to know where to turn off those notifications on Windows.
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David Medeiros

February 21, 2019 00:53
I was furious when I got this pop up as well. This is SPAM plain and simple. Paid software should never post pop-ups of this kind when users launch their software. Use a newsletter or post to your social media channels. But do not use my desktop as an advertising feed please.

BTW, this kind of auto pop-up is exactly the kind of the thing originally drove me from Adobe products to Luminar in the first place. Please don't mimic Adobe!
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Roman

February 21, 2019 10:22
@Jacques Demers

@Jorick Schram

@Anders Svensson

@David Medeiros

Thank you very much for your feedback. Our team will consider all your suggestions regarding promotional materials in the software. It is very important for us that all our users are satisfied with the quality of the program and communication.

Every user can remove personal information from the account:

https://skylum.com/account/settings

Also, our team can delete your email address from all promo and informational mailing lists per your request.

Thanks again for your feedback and suggestions!

We promise to do our best to provide you with the greatest service.
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Anders Svensson

February 21, 2019 11:35
@Roman Pylypenko, you didn't really answer my question regarding data collection: is there no way to opt out?

Adobe, Apple and more let me choose whether or not I want to supply analytics.
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Jorick Schram

February 21, 2019 12:45
@Roman: That still doesn't provide a way to stop Luminar from fetching and displaying in-app promotional messages. According to your own policy, it should be possible to disable these kind of messages but it isn't. Check the screenshot in this comment

This is clearly a violation of your policy and should be fixed ASAP in a hotfix. But first, start by admitting that it was a mistake or oversight at Skylum to not offer the option of never wanting to see these popups, instead of downplaying our concerns.

BTW: I'm sure lots of users (that includes me) want to see Luminar grow up to be able to compete with the 'others', but these things make it really hard to stay. Good software should help you be productive, not block you from getting work done by showing promotional material.
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Jorick Schram

March 04, 2019 12:39
Gentle bump as this is still waiting for an official answer and a proper solution.
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Roman

March 05, 2019 13:50
Dear users,

please accept our sincere apologies for the inconveniences caused by pop-ups in our software. That’s clearly unacceptable and we are sorry for that. We know how inconvenient it can be. Let us fix all these issues with your user experience as fast as its technically possible.

Currently, popup messages have been disabled in the software.
We are working on getting this done right now, so it will be possible to disable the pop-up messages and not to see them again. For the current moment, there is no technical way to stop Luminar from fetching and displaying in-app promotional messages.

Please let me know if you need any additional information. And what we can do for you to make your user experience better. All your comments will be considered
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