Wacom Intuos Pro VS Corsair K100 RGB
Verdict DROP IT DROP IT
The Reality In February 2020, software engineer Robert Heaton discovered and published that Wacom's tablet drivers silently logged the name of every application a user opened while the tablet driver was running, and transmitted that data to Google Analytics for tracking. The behavior was disclosed only inside Wacom's 'Wacom Experience Program' privacy policy, which most users never read closely, rather than through a clear, specific consent prompt. Wacom's response was that the data was collected only in aggregate and anonymized, and that the company 'cannot relate to any specific users' -- but it did not dispute that the app-tracking itself was occurring. The story was widely reported by outlets including The Register, Sophos, and PetaPixel in February 2020, and Wacom subsequently made the tracking easier for users to find and disable. iCUE's real-world reliability record undercuts the 'seamless' framing. On Corsair's own community forum, users report iCUE's automatic updater repeatedly failing and, in some cases, uninstalling the software entirely rather than updating it. Independent outlet PC Gamer has criticized iCUE more broadly, with staff describing it as 'at best, an okay piece of software, and actively annoying at worst,' citing stability problems including the application consuming as much as 19GB of RAM during continuous multi-day use. Corsair's own response was to build a separate website letting users authorize browser-based firmware updates specifically so they could bypass iCUE for that task.
SHORT ANSWER
Wacom Intuos Pro: Wacom's Intuos Pro driver software was found in February 2020 to silently log and transmit the name of every application users opened while the driver ran, disclosed only inside a privacy policy rather than through clear consent.
Corsair K100 RGB: Corsair markets the K100's iCUE software as seamless, but users on Corsair's own forum report the updater regularly failing or uninstalling itself, prompting Corsair to build a separate browser-based tool just to update firmware without iCUE.