Sears / K-Mart Spyware

The last two or three days have brought a rather unsettling round of reports and concerns about Sears' and K-mart's placing of spyware, and exposing private information of the their customers to the public.

Here's a catch-up link as to what's going on.

And here's a bit more


As partners K-mart and Sears look like they're keep one another in trouble.

This is another fine mess you've got us into.

Ya gotta wonder what they were thinking.


"...CA analyst Benjamin Googins last month revealed that Sears' community program involves the distribution of spyware onto consumers' computers. "Sears.com is distributing spyware that tracks all your Internet usage -- including banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage -- all in the name of 'community participation,' " he wrote.

"If you have installed Sears software on your system, all data transmitted to and from your system will be intercepted....

They're already being sued!

Larry

God bless the free-market. I know, lets all organize a boycott!

Well I wouldn't shed a tear of K-mart went bankrupt from the lawsuits. It's a shame these corporations think that this:
1) Won't be noticed
2) Is ethical (which they probably don't give a darn about anyway)
3) Will benefit customers in any way

The lack of ethics demonstrated in so many situations these days has really put a dark cloud over society. Sadly, it seems to be getting worse as the years go by.

Empath said:

The last two or three days have brought a rather unsettling round of reports and concerns about Sears' and K-mart's placing of spyware, and exposing private information of the their customers to the public.

Here's a catch-up link as to what's going on.

And here's a bit more


As partners K-mart and Sears look like they're keep one another in trouble.

This is another fine mess you've got us into.

Click to expand...

Seems these two questions never get asked anymore:

1. Did they ask their lawyers if it was legal?
2. Did they ask their moms if it was right?

What's worse, not knowing what's legal or not knowing what's bad behavior?

Would Spybot, a free software program, prevent this from happening on your PC?

Personally, I think this is being blown out of proportion. Consider the quote from the web site that Empath linked to in the first post. An excerpt is quoted at the bottom of this post for those that don;t want to follow the link. If it is even close to true, it means that

1) Only some of the users are being tracked
2) They are given notice that the information is being gathered
3) They invited to be tracked
4) They have the option of changing their minds.

A big point was the "third party site" that handled the data. This sounds scary, but WAIT! Doesn't CPF use a vendor to provide the datacom, computers and software for CPF? Are we not exchanging emails containing phone numbers, addresses and other private/personal information? YES! and it does not bother any of us.

Yes, their web site that accidentally showed past Sears purchase history was an unprofessional goof, but that's hardly sinister. Just stupid and quickly fixed.

Sears Vice President Rob Harles responded twice to Googins' revelations, defending the program. Harles said that "the overwhelming majority of members are not tracked, nor invited to be tracked;" Sears gives prominent notice to users it invites to be tracked; the process is fully explained during registration and users are provided with opt-out instructions. Harles was previously senior vice president of comScore, which produced Sears' software.

Click to expand...

Just because you are paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get you, but it's been my experience that almost nobody is ever out to get anyone.

Daniel

I've never installed the software on my computer, and won't. It doesn't appear wise to me.

Having not installed the software in question, I cannot evaluate absolutely the merits of either the Computer Associates' researcher, or the Sears Vice-President's denial and claim that it's only a few on whom they are spying.

Given the functions of their jobs, considering that the Computer Associate researcher is in the malware field, and the Sears vice-president is in the job of defending and promoting Sears, I'm more inclined to give credence to the "expert" regarding malware, and give doubt to the "expert" of spin and marketing.

well thats good to know.
often people hit that [I AGREE] button without reading what they agree to.

what rips me, along the same lines, is when the BANK a "trusted finantial" institution was giving out name address phone number and ammount owed on mortgage and assessed value to marketers.
the funny thing about it is, the loan people they gave out the info to, were thier Direct Competitors ?? make sence of that.
Ok so it might be public knowlege, but they handed the list directally and knowingly to mass Junk mailers. and the phone number is not public, but they were getting it also.

next week the stage coach will be handing Jessie James a list of customers that make deposits