Thanks for the comments and support. Actually, I also am quite concerned about privacy issues as well (my other website - AfraidToAsk.com - actually sued the government to stop them from introducing legislation that allowed censorship in schools and libraries. We were represented by the ACLU, and won in federal court, only to have that win reversed by the Supreme court (check out
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/Supreme_Court/briefs/02-361/02-361.mer.resp.mcpl.pdf).
Thus, I certainly feel your concern with the program "phoning home." The main reason Amazing Charts phones home is so it can automatically be updated with interface data, which is regularly being turned on as folks sign up for lab and other interfaces AND to allow us to announce issues. Specifically, I felt I needed a way that every user could learn about serious bugs or errors that could put data in jeopardy. This came about because of an error introduced a number of years ago, where a released ICD-9 code database had the wrong ICD code attached to the description. A nasty error, and while we emailed everybody as soon as we discovered the problem, many of the emails we had were no longer in service, and a bunch of our emails never got delivered because of spam filters that blocked the mass mailing.
I realized then that we needed a way for the user to get a brief alert if such an error ever recurred, and thus we built this feature.
The actual data uploaded to Amazing Charts only includes the practice ID number (or the practice email address) which we use to connect the data to our database of registered users. The data downloaded includes announcements and information related to what services the practice has. Nothing more.
Sound okay?
