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Sears will spy no more...

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This thread's last reply is from . Advice, software, and links below may be out of date — treat specific steps and download links with caution.

Post #1
FYI…

- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/04/se…pyware_charges/
4 June 2009 - "… Sears Holding Corporation, owner of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart, has agreed to delete all the information harvested by the software, which pried into customers' most intimate web habits. The company also agreed to be more upfront about any information it may collect in the future… As privacy advocates documented early last year*, Sears sent emails to people shortly after they provided their address at Sears.com inviting them to join an "exciting online community." In fact, it was a pitch to install software from web research outfit ComScore that monitored their every online move. No, we're not exaggerating. According to the FTC complaint, information collected included "not only information about websites consumers visited and links that they clicked, but also the text of secure pages, such as online banking statements, video rental transactions, library borrowing histories, online drug prescription records, and select header fields that could show the sender, recipient, subject, and size of web-based email messages." The software recorded in real-time "certain non-internet-related activities taking place on those computers" as well…"
* http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/03/se…are_disclosure/

> http://www2.ftc.gov/opa/2009/06/sears.shtm

:ph34r: :angry:
Post #2
If ever there was any doubt of monetary incentive for purveyors of malware, this report sets them aside. While the potential profit measured in the few billions of dollars can be reasonably speculated to be accounted by thousands of individual felonious transactions, I have always held the belief that many thousands of otherwise legitimate companies do purchase and/or subscribe to information sources without questioning the legitimacy of the source. I'm not surprised of this Sears sponsored racket, just confirmed in my dismal attitude toward those companies and authorities who hold themselves out to be respectable. When I was a young man traveling in the Far East, I was cautious of wearing loose dangling jewelry, wrist watches with expansion bands, or easily snatched packages. I carried, and still do carry my wallet in a front pocket. By comparison with today's ordinary exposure on the internet, I was quite safe amongst whatever street hoodlums I may have encountered in what I thought to be my exotic and dangerous adventures.