Canon inkjet printer survey... Our Printers have internal counters?!?

[Nifty]

I just got this in my email:

"Dear Canon inkjet printer users,

Thank you very much for choosing a Canon inkjet printer.

Canon is conducting a survey regarding inkjet printer usage ("Survey"). The purpose of the Survey is to gather data from your printer and analyze that data, along with data gathered from the printers of our other customers, to provide an accurate picture of the usage of consumables for these printers (i.e. ink and paper) and to help us develop products that will better meet your needs and the needs of our other customers. A detailed description of the data to be gathered from your printer is set forth later in this message.

Participating in the Survey is simple. A program for the Survey will automatically gather usage information, such as data on ink and paper usage, from your printer. The entire process will only take a few minutes. This program will reside on your computer only as long as necessary to gather the usage information from your printer; it will not access files or other information from your computer, including any personal information.

To thank you for participating in the Survey, a drawing will be conducted in order to select four Survey participants at random to receive one each of the following:

- Canon Optura60 Mini DV Camcorder;
- Mini DV Camcorder Starter Kit (Case, Tape and High-Capacity Battery);
- Canon SELPHY DS700 Compact Photo Printer;
- Canon Photo Paper Pro 4"x6" 20-Sheet Pack; and
- Canon Glossy Photo Paper Credit Card Size 100-Sheet Pack."


Even without prizes I like to give some usage info to companies with whom I do business. If it helps them determine what to make and how to get a better product or service to me then we both win.

While going through the survey I read something interesting:

Enter your e-mail address in the input box below and click "GO" to access the survey program execution page. Follow the instructions to run the survey program. The survey program will automatically gather information from the Canon inkjet printer connected to your computer and send that information back to Canon Inc. It is not necessary to save the survey program to your computer's hard drive. The entire process will only take a few minutes and the survey program will be automatically deleted from your computer upon completion. Even if you save this program to your computer's hard drive, it is not self-activating; it can only work if you start it up.

Survey
Items
- Amount of ink consumed
- Number of sheets fed through the printer
- Type and size of papers selected
- Number of times the printhead cleaning was done
- Setup date
- USB serial number

NOTES

In addition to the Survey Items listed above, the survey program will gather other printer device information such as, but not limited to, printhead alignment status and any error codes.
The Survey will not gather or transmit any information about your computer, your personal information, or what you have printed.

Since the data gathered in the Survey does not include any personal information and cannot be linked to the e-mail address you entered in the web page, it will be impossible to identify any user from the data gathered. Therefore, we cannot respond to any inquiries from Survey participants asking us to release the data gathered.


HOLY COW... I think this means that the printers have internal counters in them along with some other very interesting data on ink and paper usage? How many of us would LOVE to get our hands on this data????

 

[Nifty]

I just called the support guys and asked if the data was available for the users. He said, "Absolutely not."

Any programmers out there want to reverse engineer the application and learn how to pull this data to a desktop application? How cool would a nice GUI interface to your printer info be?

 

[BlasterQ]

any program used to gather information from your computer and forward it to somebody is always suspect and i encourage you not to participate.
why? you really cannot tell what data will be recorded and forwarded to the said institution or company. such programs could be used to gather personal data, e-mail and other online account passwords, credit card information, and any other stuff.
i doubt that e-mail came from canon, but you did mention you called tech support, but just to be sure, ask them about such things.
stuff like this is used around the world to steal any information that would be used to steal money by illegal means.

 

[Nifty]

BQ, I appreciate the words of caution, but it is already done. The fact that I got two emails from them for both of the printers I have registered and that the call seemed valid made me non-suspicious.

I'm not overly worried about the information leaking and the email address they used is my "junk mail" account with a great filter on it (http://popfile.sourceforge.net ).

Most of all I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get the application they use to do this and see if I can get someone to backward engineer it.

 

[BlasterQ]

Well, it does appear that Canon indeed has an internal counter, how else could that program 'know' how much ink you used, and how many pages you printed in just a few minutes of operation? At first I thought they will be installing a program that will monitor your usage from the time the program is installed and would send information to them after some time (i.e. one month). But by reading your post again, the program just runs for a few minutes and within that time frame, it will be able to get all the information it needs regarding your printer. Then if that is the case, they have indeed a counter. This could be another factor why all of a sudden, you will get a clogged printhead no matter how many times you clean it? Could it be that while the printhead is still ok, it will stop performing because of the internal counter? This is scary. I thought only HP, Epson and other companies do this, but not Canon. Now I'm having doubts.

 

[Scrubking]

I wouldn't be surprised if Canon had information collection devices. They are probably just being more deceptive about it. Printer companies seem to be hell bent on making people who buy their printers their slaves.

 

[Nifty]

The guy I spoke with on the phone said that the data goes directly to their engineers for the purpose of analyzing the product. For example, looking at the number of times head cleaning, aligning, etc. are done compared to pages printed and cartridge changes. Maybe I'm just more trusting / optimistic, but I think their motives are to make a better product and to see if the changes they've made to newer models are paying off in the real world.

 

[tyamada]

I have been to a canon repair facility, these guys are contracted by Canon to repair their printers.

They have software to check everything on the printer and they have service manuals the have the set codes for everything.
The flash codes and beep codes are included.

For some reason Canon and Epson probably have a kill befor reading caluse very strict one not to disclose any of thier service secrets.

I found a Russian site that had some of the service manuals but I can't find the link anymore, I did a Google search for Waste Ink Tank full and got the hit.

 

[Nifty]

We should all pull some funds together to get a programmer to reverse engineer this application. I figure these are OUR printers... we paid for them, we should be able to acess everything on them!

 

[Nifty]

Other people have mentioned that they think this may be a scam. I called the number again (1-866-972-2666) and if this is a scam it is really well done and they deserve my secret information!