Sears' Spyware

Shaun Waterman, UPI, reports today:

Catalog giant Sears Holdings Corp. is under fire for installing what critics say is spyware on customers' computers when they join its online community.

Privacy advocates says the software program -- which tracks every Web site users visit and every search, purchase or other transaction they make, including e-mail they send, and sends details to an online market research company -- is spyware and is banned by federal trade regulations.

For its part, the company says it goes to "great lengths" to disclose the nature of the program users' have installed on their computers.

According to privacy specialist and Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ben Edelman, Sears' "My SHC Community" program falls short of the standards required for disclosure of such software by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

"The FTC requires that, before any such tracking programs are installed, consumers give 'express consent,'" Edelman told United Press International, quoting from a recent commission settlement with two spyware vendors.

"That means they (Sears) have to 'clearly and prominently disclose' anything 'material' about the program. … That disclosure has to be 'unavoidable' and take place 'prior to … and separate from,' any final licensing agreement," he added.

"Sears clearly is falling short of those requirements," Edelman concluded, calling the failure "remarkable" and "very brazen."

Spyware researcher Benjamin Googins of Islandia, N.Y.-based CA Inc., who first blogged about the issue, pointed out that the software sends data about consumers' Internet activity not to Sears' own Web site, but to a site registered to ComScore Inc., an online market research firm, which he said was a violation of the promise in the SHC Community's privacy policy that the information is transmitted to "our servers."....