Sears partners with The Devil to make your online experience more unenjoyable

Well, perhaps that title's not completely fair. Satan wouldn't stoop to Spyware. The story is just breaking, but it appears Sears has joined the ranks of large brand companies that should know better. As part of their, "My SHC" online shopping program, they added spyware to shopper's computers. (Read the story here.) There is also a very interesting back and forth going on between the CA Security Advisor Research Blog and Rob Harles of Sears. What seems to be at issue is whether or not users knew they were signing up for Sears' tracking of their movements online. Sears says yes, they were tagging specific visitors, but those visitors knew what they were getting into. Others say that the notification that they were about to be guinea pigs for Sears were burried deep within the privacy policy - that byzantine block of text you always see, but never ever read, when you are signing up for something. Truely, has anyone ever read all the way through one of those? It might be a good idea, of course, given the inherent risks of going online. That, for me, is the real story - Sears, as do many other companies, hide the body in the open. They tell you that they will be using you for tracking, but they do it by inserting 54 words to the effect in their 1200 or so word privacy policy. Perhaps the solution is to get rid of these customer agreements, and hold companies responsible (read: liable) for doing things that are - or should be - illegal. It's very touchy stuff, but the fact of the matter is Internet law has been left to businesses for a very long time now, and we lose our privacy as a result. I know a lot of people who wouldn't mind that. Some of us still do, though, and we're the ones who are losing the ability to choose. The idea that businesses could just tell us, "well if you don't like it don't go online," seems inherently unfair.

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)