How is Adobe Update Notifier auto launched on Mac OS X?
The updater is registered with the system service launchd. Instructions to completely disable this can be found on The real way to disable Adobe Updater from your Mac OS X:

Open a Terminal window and type the following commands:

cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents
launchctl remove `basename com.adobe.ARM.* .plist`
launchctl remove `basename com.adobe.AAM.* .plist`
launchctl remove com.adobe.ARM.Scheduler-1.0
launchctl remove com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0
rm com.adobe.ARM.*
rm com.adobe.AAM.*


Note that depending on your version of Adobe programs, some of the above lines may generate errors. That's fine.

If the above does not disable it, you may need to remove it at a system level. You'd use the same commands as above, but with two additions/changes:

sudo -s
[type your administrator password when prompted]
cd /Library/LaunchAgents
launchctl remove `basename com.adobe.ARM.* .plist`
launchctl remove `basename com.adobe.AAM.* .plist`
launchctl remove com.adobe.ARM.Scheduler-1.0
launchctl remove com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0
rm com.adobe.ARM.*
rm com.adobe.AAM.*
exit