Sears Installs Spyware

Gandalf_the_Beardy writes in with news that's been around a while but is getting more attention lately. Last month Benjamin Googins, a security researcher at CA, determined that Sears Holding Corp. installed ComScore spyware without adequate disclosure. Sears said, yes we tell people about tracking their browsing. On Jan. 1 spyware researcher Ben Edelman weighed in, noting that Sears' notice occurs on page 10 of a 54-page privacy statement, and twits Sears because its installation identifies the software as "VoiceFive" and later claims it's coming from a company called "TMRG, Inc." even though a packet sniffer confirms the software belongs to ComScore, adding "These confusing name-changes fit the trend among spyware vendors."

Comments

Sears is evil.

[TheDarkener]

My dad worked for Sears as an appliance repair tech for 25+ years. The stories he's told me about their tracking their employees, their customer "service" practices, sales approaches, etc... is just plain wrong. He was constantly intimidated by "the boss" to perform better or he would be fired (even though he was the top performing tech in the area). It was nothing but stress for him and I wish he had never worked for them.

Now he works for a small appliance/TV repair shop, and he absolutely loves it. Just another reason to flip the bird to big corporations - they don't care about people, they care about money. The spyware installation on their own customers' computer systems is just one small example.

Re:Sears is evil.

[pilgrim23]

I also worked a time for Sears. I can confirm the above. Their motivational technique was equal part bombast and intimidation. Not a fun company to work and play with.

Re:Sears is evil.

[jcgf]

I once worked for Sears Canada in their Regina call center. Your dad was not exaggerating.

Re:Sears is evil.

[oahazmatt]

I worked for Sears for six days. I was in the electronics department, and didn't have a number so I couldn't ring up any sales myself.

Anyway, someone asked the manager for Sunday off, the manager said "sure, find someone to switch with you." The employee did one better and just switched his name on the board with someone else, without asking anyone.

So the person who has been switched realizes their now working six days in a row without being consulted, go to the manager, and the manager says "well so-and-so isn't working, so you need to find someone to cover." Somewhere I hear about this and mutter "isn't this the manager's job" and everyone just looks at me like I'm an idiot.

This snowballs. I show up, a trainee, during a heavily promoted sale, as the only "associate" (Can't I be a freakin' employee) working the electronics floor for four hours. I can't ring up sales. So I tell people the truth. I also tell them about other locations in the mall where they can find the product they're looking for. And you know what, about 30% came back to me later to buy the stuff when they knew I could ring up sales. One person even told the manager that I was the best employee he'd seen at that store and I bent over backwards to make him happy even if he didn't buy from me, and that if I wasn't there whenever he came in, he wouldn't buy from the store at all.

So now the manager was not happy with me because I made him and the other employees "look bad", to quote him.

I drove into work on that seventh day, and it was an absolute mad house. Big sale, horribly understocked (1 new computer, 3 floor models, about 25 people wanting them) and the manager starts telling me how he needs me on the floor.

So I look at the chaos that his scheduling and his lack of proper planning created, looked him in the eye, told him I quit, and walked out the door.

Shame I had to throw away that 3-cent commission on the big screen TV.

Re:Sears is evil.

[himurabattousai]

GP is not off-topic. The treatment a company gives its employees and the treatment a company gives its customers are often one and the same. After all, the employees are just an indirect revenue stream (by helping to separate the customer from his money). As far as the big mega-corp is concerned, money is king, and it will do whatever is necessary to milk their customers (and employees) for every cent of profit it can get. Things like good customer service only cut into that profit (in the mega-corp's mind), and the mega-corp would rather take the small chance that spyware would bring them more money than to have good customer service because the spyware costs less.

Of course, the obvious way to avoid problems like these is to not sign up for such things in the first place. How many people receive an actual benefit by signing up for this kind of service?? I'd bet the number is somewhere between zero and two.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Itninja]

Wow. Your post has spawned replies with very liberal use of fear quotes. But seriously, "I agree".

Re:Sears is evil.

[lpangelrob]

I bought a vacuum from Sears. The thing is, they tend to be the exclusive seller of good to great products, as verified in Consumer Reports.

Will they push the extended warranty on you at the point of sale? Of course. So does just about everyone in a decently sized store.

If they didn't care about people as much as most Slashdotters think most corporations don't care about people, they wouldn't bother with the quality products. Of course, this doesn't absolve spying on their customers (time to turn of Javascript for them, eh? Thanks NoScript!).

Re:Sears is evil.

[networkBoy]

Yet another confirmation here. Parent is being nice if anything.
-nB

Re:Sears is evil.

[pongo000]

I worked for Sears (retail) for about 4 years. I never experienced any of the issues related here, which just goes to show you that there are always both sides of the story.

In fact, the Sears I worked at (in Houston) went out of their way to accommodate us (most of us high school or college students at the time). The supervisors were, for the most part, reasonable to work with, and nobody put undue demands on us to perform. I wasn't commissioned sales, but I probably knew everybody in the store, and I don't recall anybody relating horror stories like those mentioned already.

I'm not saying the stories related here didn't happen...but let's be fair: Mod up four or five "negative" stories without counterbalance?

Oh, wait, this is /. What am I thinking...

Re:Sears is evil.

[TheDarkener]

Glad to see your response. You're right, there are always two sides to a story, and your post proves it.

Just so happens that you're the only one who's counter-balanced so far. That would lead me to believe that there are many more negative stories about Sears than not...until other people decide to speak up, of course.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Ardee]

Back in the days of paper checks, clerks at Sears used to stamp "COINS" on the back of the check before accepting it. They then circled the "appropriate" letter: C for Caucasian, O for Oriental, I for Indian, N for Negro or S for Spanish. Yikes! Clearly, no choice of PC for politically correct!

Re:Sears is evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

My mom did the opposite, my parents owned their own electronics repair shop, my dad died and my mom took it over by herself for about 15 years. She got sick of it and has been working at a Sears repair facility for the past 9 years. I hear all kinds of stories and instead of repeating them in detail I'll tell you that I came but the assumption all middle and low level managers at large national companies are untrained, do not know how to manage, do not think for themselves, and just yes men and woman towing the company line. I truly believe that the only requirement to be one of these managers is to say "yes" and "sounds great" all of the time at the manager meetings where they all pat each other on the back. Really.

Okay, I will go into some stories. This Sears facility is for units under warranty or extended contracts. Sears started taking special note of units repaired by each technician. Basically, the person that completed the most repairs and got the units out the door was the star technician. Nothing else was considered like failure rates, followup returns etc. So if you had a vacuum that had a bad belt and the beater bar was half cracked, he would just replace the belt. Not caring that the beater bar would not last another week and the unit would be back. Of course he would bust out some high repair numbers and somehow Sears considered this the primary goal. These are regional repair facilities so the units are shipped great distances and accounted for the whole way so I know a $4 beater bar is cheaper than a return trip for that vacuum and the potential loss of trust for the customer. Another interesting note was the mower shop was not authorized to have any gas and oil in the shop so although the techs would repair the motors and mowers, they had absolutely NO WAY to test them, they are sent back to the customer untested. Coming from owning her own business my mom did not understand this. I told her to forget trying to be and do what you think is right, do what Sears wants you do to or what ever metric they gauge you by this week and you will be fine. Kind of like the boss that only cares about watching the morning clock to make sure you get there on time. The person who gets there on time but does nothing but hang in the break room until lunch is better off then the person who gets to work 5 minutes late and busts their ass until lunch.

Re:Sears is evil.

[phantomlord]

Back when I was a teenager, I went through management training for a chain restaurant with an Irish name.

One of the first things we learned is (a series of studies they did said) people are 10x more likely to be vocal about a negative experience than a positive one. I would imagine that's just as true on the employee perspective as it is the customer's side. People usually don't talk about how their boss pretty much met their expectations, just like they don't go around bragging that the toaster they got from Target seems ok. Once in a while, you'll hear about some great manager somewhere, but it's almost always in response to someone (or a bunch of people) talking about how much their management sucks

So, just because he's the only one with a positive story about working there doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other people who had good experiences. It just means that people who had bad experiences are more likely to vocalize them.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Quiet_Desperation]

Every person I have know who worked in sales has the same story.

A good friend paid for his college degree as a Frito Lay sales guy. He could leave a store so full of chips that the roof was being pushed off, and the managers back at base will still shout "Sell more to them! MORE!" The MBAs simply can't comprehend that markets involve finite numbers. There's only so many damned potato chips eaten in a given neighborhood on a given day.

Funny anecdote: he restocked, by far, the most chips every month right after welfare checks were sent out. Your tax dollars at work.

Re:Sears is evil.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Quality products = better reputation = more customers = more profits. Even good customer service equates directly to more customers and more profits. It has nothing to do with caring about customers. I work for a large credit card company, that before it was bought out, had a horrible reputation and customers were leaving in droves. Then the first buyout occurred, and our call center advisors were told all about how they had to start being sympathetic to the customers and make good impressions. And lo! customers started coming back, once the customer service reputation improved.

While there are some /employees/ in the large corporations who actually care about the customers, the ones making the executive decisions literally care only insofar as it affects the bottom line. If it was more profitable to sell crappy products and give shit service, Sears would be first in line to start doing that.

Re:Sears is evil.

[TheDarkener]

Well, then I specifically challenge all those who have had great experiences with Sears to come forth and vocalize them. It's up to them to prove the point of Sears being an ethical corporation, rather than a spyware-installing, customer-jipping, employee-thrashing blob of firey yellow snot.

1 2 3 POST!

Re:Sears is evil.

[rainman_bc]

the treatment a company gives its customers are often one and the same. I'll argue though that Wal-Mart seems to treat their customers well and their employees like inexpensive lemmings.

Re:Sears is evil.

[teflaime]

If it was more profitable to sell crappy products and give shit service, Sears would be first in line to start doing that.
It is more profitable. Why do you think Wal-Mart over took Sears as the world's largest retailer...crappy products at a cheap price.

Re:Sears is evil.

[poot_rootbeer]

So I look at the chaos that his scheduling and his lack of proper planning created, looked him in the eye, told him I quit, and walked out the door.

BIG mistake.

What you should have done is tell him you quit, and then stick around to observe the carnage until asked to leave.

Re:Sears is evil.

[soft_guy]

Sears does NOT sell quality products. There are much better places to buy anything you want to buy including vacuum cleaners. I recommend a dedicated vacuum cleaner store.

Sears screwed me over once on a product I ordered through them at age 19. I haven't been back since. Their products are all shit and their company is a dinosaur.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have worked at sears for about 3 1/2 years now and it has been great for me. Compared to past places I have worked, it is great. The bosses I have are friendly and I am in college and they have no problem with allowing time off for school or anything.

Re:Sears is evil.

[ne0n]

So you haven't been back since you were 19. The only reason I visit Sears is their Craftsman tools w/ lifetime guarantee*. Canadian Tire has similar products but I still enjoy using my dad's good old Craftsman stuff.


* be wary nowadays, Sears has apparently watered down the new guarantees

Re:Sears is evil.

[Hatta]

I'm not saying the stories related here didn't happen...but let's be fair: Mod up four or five "negative" stories without counterbalance?

People tend to mod up posts that confirm their personal experiences. The fact that 5 negative stories got modded up and only one positive story(yours) did should tell you something.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Khaed]

This and the other pro-Sears comment pretty well go in line with the negative-Sears comments and prove something: It's all in the managers. When it comes to a chain of stores, there are going to be many, many different types of managers.

I can say this from experience in one restaurant: I worked for six months for a distinctively Southern restaurant chain once. There were often two managers working busy shifts -- one for the store, one for the kitchen. We had four managers and one general manager. The GM was okay, and the four managers were split with two great ones and two really shitty managers. Which ones I got stuck with determined if I went home muttering about quitting or not.

Only one of those five was still there a year later, and he was one of the good ones (and he was in fact the ONLY employee still there a year later from when I worked -- everyone else left. Everyone, from the dishwashers to the GM.)

Managers make a huge difference, even in just one establishment. I imagine Sears isn't far removed from this -- the attitude of the managers is a deciding factor, because employees can be as great as possible but they won't stick around unless they have to when abused.

Re:Sears is evil.

[HiThere]

I suspect that Sears may be close to a franchise, with different managers given a relatively free hand in setting policy. The local Sears used to be pretty good, but a few years ago it underwent a severe change (can't say whether quickly or not...I didn't shop there that often). Now...

Now the employees look unhappy. The selection of goods is abysmal. The service is terrible. And I haven't gone back there in quite awhile. I shop, occasionally, at one 50 miles further away (which gives me a choice of two, and they're both pretty good). And at the Kenmore repair center the last time I called the people I dealt with seemed friendly and helpful. You don't get that when the employees are unhappy.

OTOH,I've been in several branches of Sears in different cities which I would not choose to revisit. And others that were good to decent. (I've never seen a Sears that I would call excellent.)

So... I believe BOTH of your stories, and suspect that they were typical of the local environment, but not of the chain, which doesn't seem to have a consistent environment.

Re:Sears is evil.

[bynary]

I was working at a now defunct, Mexican-owned computer store the week of and following 9/11. We had a staff meeting the following Monday where the manager berated the sales people for numbers being down. He was so detached from reality that he couldn't comprehend why no one was buying a new computer in the week following a major national catastrophe. All he saw was low numbers.

"If no one's shopping, no one's buying."

Crazy...

Re:Sears is evil.

[phulegart]

I have personally found that Sears sells the same quality products as other stores, occasionally at more reasonable prices. However, what would make me always go back and check them first, is their policy to upgrade a desired item, if what you want is out of stock. Now I noticed that the Sears in Hyanis MA would quite often not have electronics that I was interested in, in stock. I was making purchases for a handful of people further up on Cape Cod. These would range from televisions and portable radios, to game systems, to appliances. About half the time I would drive the 60+ miles with a list of specific items to purchase, and head back up cape with stuff that should have cost much more; better larger TVs, the next model "boom box", etc.

I like that policy much better than just hearing a store employee apologize and ask you to come back next week, or to take a rain check... or try to SELL you the more expensive item.

And yeah, the life-time (no questions asked) guarantee on Craftsman tools rocks.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Peter Mork]

But, do you need a receipt? I got a shirt for Christmas two years ago. When I first put it on to go to work, I realized it had a stain on it. I took it back to Sears to exchange it and was told that it couldn't be exchanged without a receipt. Now, expecting a receipt for a return is one thing, but they wouldn't take responsibility for selling a damaged product. I haven't returned to Sears since, and if past behaviour is any indication, I won't for another three years.

Re:Sears is evil.

[plover]

I've bought six Kenmore appliances from Sears over the past couple of years. No problems, and apart from one overly aggressive salesman, no hassles. And when the refrigerator they delivered didn't fit our space (the left door wouldn't open in the recessed spot in which we had placed it) they politely and quickly exchanged it for a single-door model, giving us full credit for the exchange. Their delivery and installation crews showed up when they said they would. And the appliances work as advertised.

On top of that, most of the appliances we replaced were 20 year old "entry level" (a.k.a. cheapest) Sears appliances that were still 95% functional. Only a few small things had broken, such as the clock/timer on the oven, and we rationalized that into an excuse to modernize our kitchen and laundry. We felt we received good value from our original investments in them, and we have had no problems with the new appliances.

I also have had very good luck with a large number of Craftsman hand tools. And their service on my gas powered string trimmer was prompt and completed without problems.

My wife also likes the convenience of being able to return online orders of Land's End products at the local Sears store.

From a satisfied customer perspective I have no complaints about Sears. And if they are treating their employees unfairly, they have hidden it from me very well.

Re:Sears is evil.

[D'Sphitz]

Yep. There are (im guessing) thousands of Sears stores, and hundreds of thousands of Sears employees. Surely there are people who have had bad experiences, and there are surely bad managers in there too. I don't know, I worked at Sears for over 2 years and have no complaints, there was never any employee discontent, everyone was pretty happy there and it was a great place to work. Plus it's a great place to shop -- appliances, sporting goods, electronics, power tools, lawn & garden, automotive, and the wife has all the bedding and drapes she could ever imagine to keep her busy while i play with tools.

Re:Sears is evil.

[LWATCDR]

Of course you need receipt.
How does Sears know you bought it at Sears. Some stores will take back anything like Walmart. But most will require that you prove you bought it from them. Craftsman tools are the exception since only Sears sells them.
Now Target was pretty good. I needed to return a gift that I got my wife because her mother got her the same thing. I didn't keep the recite because I am dumb. I did pay for it with my credit card so they just looked it up by that and did the return for me. Sometimes data retention is a good thing.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

1. Sufficient quality at a reduced price is not "crappy products".

2. I may be flamed, but geeze, please post links to studies showing these are "crappy quality" compared to Sears, or K-mart, for that matter. It's almost 100% the same stuff.

3. Wal-Mart saves Americans in excess of $200 billion a year. Significant cost savings count quite a lot in economic analysis.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

"There are (im guessing) thousands of Sears stores"

There were about 850 Sears department stores at their peak, plus some specialty stores like hardware stores, etc.

Please note that the Sears of today is not the Sears of 20 or even 10 years ago, they were bought by K-Mart, or more realistically, by the man who bought K-Mart, and they no longer run themeselves, not that they ever did a good job of doing that anyway.

Re:Sears is evil.

[lpangelrob]

I didn't say they sold just quality products. I said they sell some quality products. Like the current CR Best Buy upright vacuum.

If it comes down to product quality, I don't leave it up to brand, store or whether the thing was made in America or not - those are all useless indicators. Which is why I pick an impartial, well-run third party to test what I consume, like recipes (Cooks Illustrated), products (Consumer Reports) or services (Angie's List).

Of course there might still be some duds, but I'll take the educated decision over a crapshoot any day.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Abreu]

This is true.

When you get great service/product you might tell 1-5 people, and usually only when asked.

When you get bad service/product, you tell EVERYONE AND HIS MOM

Re:Sears is evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can confirm 'Sears is evil' further since I too work at Sears. As a cashier, our basic responsibility is to get customers to use and have people sign up for the Sears family card/Sears Gold Mastercard. On a typical day, we start with a goal of how many credits we ought to achieve. The main incentive for signing up for the Sears Gold Mastercard is to save $15. The typical customer who signs up for the card (senior citizens, clueless college students, etc...) think this is a great idea and will proceed to sign up. Even though they may already hold 3-4 cards. On a given day, when the head manager walks by, rather than a friendly greet. You would get 'how many credits did ya get?' or 'what's your goal today' This is just a scenario of the store in this area. Not others.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Peter Mork]

I agree that you need a receipt to return an item. However, if a store is unwilling to exchange a defective item*, they run a serious risk of alienating their customers. Since this experience, I have had nothing good to say about Sears, and it will take a long time before I will consider returning.

*Note that to exchange an item, the store must carry exactly that item. Moreover, if the item is defective, they can return the item to the manufacturer.

PS: Target's return policy is why I now buy most of my clothing there. In this case, reasonable customer service has translated into store loyalty, which in turn translates into several thousand dollars worth of business every year.

PPS: So, in short, screw Sears.

Re:Sears is evil.

[Svartalf]

"Seems" is the key word there... I've gotten bad treatment from Wal-Marts in the past.

My wife and our friend have been accosted over their service animals in Wal-Marts (Even
though the effing doors have "Service Animals Welcome"...)- if you're not seeing a lot
of the bad treatment, you're just...lucky...

Re:Sears is evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am working for a nonprofit that is creating company profiles on Corporations like Sears. If you have verifiable information on corporate misdeeds, please contribute.

Re:Sears is evil.

[ForestGrump]

Well, a large chain store I enjoy going to is harbor fright tools. Large selection with very reasonable prices and decent quality for the price. I mean, alot of tools I buy are only used once or twice (Security torx bits?).

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/retail_stores.taf

Re:Sears is evil.

[Rockin'Robert]

Globalist outfits like that suck the life-blood (cash) out of the local community.
Care local.
Buy local.
RR

What is Sears Looking For?

[JohnAllison]

Granted, I fall into the crowd of Spy Ware is evil, but I really want to know what Sears's plan was for the data they were monitoring.

I would love to meet the decision maker that believes this is morally permissive act that can be "contracted" through an EULA.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[viking099]

Sears and Kmart are suffering heavily from their competitors like Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, and Lowes. They need to find new revenue streams, and this is probably some marketing tech-savvy manager's way of doing that.

They link up with a spyware company, get people to sign up for a community or whatever, then rake in the user data that is generated from their browsing. There may or may not be any specific danger to an individual user, and most of the gathered data is probably used in an aggregate sense, but the problem lies in the fact that no one knows what's there, how it's gathered, coded, or stored, and how secure it is.

I wonder if a SHC Community member has their identity stolen because of weak software programming on the spyware company if that company can be held liable, or if there's a clause in there that absolves them of any real responsibility regarding the security of the data being collected.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[gstoddart]

I would love to meet the decision maker that believes this is morally permissive act that can be "contracted" through an EULA.

Surely, you're kidding right?

Large companies operate on what is legally permissible. If current case law says you can legally put any bullshit into an EULA and have it be valid, that's the bar.

They don't give a flying crap about morally OK -- it's irrelevant.

Companies are impersonal entities, managed by people with a profit motive to maximize their bonuses by doing what they can do to maximize shareholder value in the short term. Morality doesn't apply if the lawyers tell them it was legal.

Cheers

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that morality never crossed their mind. The thinking probably went something like this:

Spyware company: "We'll pay you $5 per machine to install this software on all the computers you sell."

Sears exec: "Oh, like AOL or Symantec do. Are you legit? Is this legal?"

Spyware company: "Yep look we're a big company, and you just need to disclose its presence somewhere in your EULA. Here's some example text to include."

Sears exec: "Done deal."

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[raving griff]

But, if you look back at previous lawsuits that users have filed against big corporations with crazy EULA's, the court system often rules against the business, under the basis that the business is violating human rights.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[JohnAllison]

Not really kidding.

I'm aware of how companies exist in the legal context, but I am also aware that individuals have to write the EULAs, and come up with the idea to install software to monitor their customers. So I was addressing the moral decisions of the decision maker, the person, not the legal entity that is the company. With that distinction in mind I still stand by my remark. I want to meet the decision maker that felt it was OK to create a contract where by the other party allows for this tracking software to exist, and to do so by burying this little gem in the middle of the EULA. Would his reaction to my question of, "Why?" be one of indifference (probably) or defensive (I can do what I want behind my corporate veil.)

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[gstoddart]

I'm aware of how companies exist in the legal context, but I am also aware that individuals have to write the EULAs, and come up with the idea to install software to monitor their customers. So I was addressing the moral decisions of the decision maker, the person, not the legal entity that is the company.

But, since an EULA is essentially a contract, it'll be written by lawyers. While there are probably some perfectly decent lawyers, the ones writing contracts and EULAs don't seem to be included in them.

I suspect someone made a business case to someone, who consulted with a lawyer, and then the lawyer drafted up what they had agreed upon. It's entirely conceivable that the person who OK'd it didn't understand the tech behind what he was doing, or didn't care. The lawyer just did it in good faith and within his understanding of the law. Again, I think morality would have been left out of the loop.

In the end, once the 3rd party company is involved, they've already got permission from the company you agreed with, and they don't need to give a damn what might be legal or ethical -- they got a free pass, because you agreed to it.

I'm not saying you don't make some good points. I'm just far too cynical about companies and lawyers to really think anyone did any soul searching over this. :-P

Cheers

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[rah1420]

IDK about identity theft, but you should read the comment that "heather" left on the CA blog about "managemyhome.com," another Sears web site. Apparently all you need is a name, address, and phone number and you can log on as that person and view purchase history from Sears for, what I would surmise, is the big ticket items like refrigideezers and washers.

Now that's almost criminal.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[radish]

That's actually not universally true. I've sat in a lot of meetings with very senior, very well paid people (and their associated lawyers) and have heard them literally say "we wouldn't be breaking the law, but it wouldn't look good in the press". Many companies value their image and reputation extremely highly and doing something which leads to the company being embarassed, even if it's 100% legal, would be a firing offence.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Anonymous Coward]

courts rule on codified laws, not touchy-freely emotions about what is allegedly a right

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[gstoddart]

That's actually not universally true. I've sat in a lot of meetings with very senior, very well paid people (and their associated lawyers) and have heard them literally say "we wouldn't be breaking the law, but it wouldn't look good in the press".

I'm glad to hear there are some left. I just fear they're in the minority, and dwindling.

Of course, that is something I'd love to be wrong about. :-P

Cheers

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Mesa MIke]

That's not morality either. That's called expediency. It's still all about what gets the most money. Expediency says that bad press leads to lower profits.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[radish]

Sure it isn't morality per se, but it is related to other people's morality. In other words, because other people (our customers/shareholders/the public) would consider this immoral, we won't do it - regardless of potential profit or legality. It also shows a thought towards long term profit vs short term - there's no point making a buck now if it puts us out of business in the future. I'm not saying it's not about making money in the end, but the OP was complaining about companies not looking to the future and being interested only in short term gains and staying within the letter of the law.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[dr hester]

They appear to be looking for unsophisticated computer users who don't understand the security threats involved. Out of curiosity, I visited their website and went to the "Join SHC" link at the bottom of the page. I was using Mac OSX and Firefox 2.0. I got the following message: "In general we support Netscape, IE and AOL. To view the browsers and operating systems we currently support click here. Download one of the following browsers and come back to be a Shoppers' Hotline Wired member!" They have links to get IE and Netscape. And only windows systems are supported. I'm not trying to be flamebait, but many of the older folks I know that have computers use them straight out of the box, with minimal attention to security other than maybe the free Norton antivirus subscription that comes pre-loaded. These folks have probably long been Sears retail customers at brick and mortar stores. They likely trust the brand and so get their personal information stolen in return.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[u-235-sentinel]

That's actually not universally true. I've sat in a lot of meetings with very senior, very well paid people (and their associated lawyers) and have heard them literally say "we wouldn't be breaking the law, but it wouldn't look good in the press". Many companies value their image and reputation extremely highly and doing something which leads to the company being embarassed, even if it's 100% legal, would be a firing offence.

I agree. There are some companies who do care and have stepped up to meeting their customers needs. Unlike some companies, there are organizations who really care about their reputation.

For example, Qwest, while not the best example (I've heard the stories about them too), for me at least heard about my problems with Concast terminating my families Internet service for using it too much (yeah, crazy huh??). They were planning on installing a DSLAM in our area but not until much later in 2007. I notified them of what Concast was doing in my neighborhood and spoke with the City Council and our Mayor about it.

Well what do you know. They pushed it up several months so we were without Internet access for only a couple of months.

Again, I know I know. I've heard the stories and realize Qwest has issues to deal with also. But this isn't bad and their customer service has been outstanding since we switched to them. Hell, now they are talking about running fiber to the home in my area.

Can't say I have much to complain about other than I'm still waiting for that fiber drop guys ;D

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Hatta]

That's just further proof that money is important above all else to corporations. They wouldn't care about being embarrassed if it didn't cost them any money.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Trails]

Actually, it's much more nepostistic and unsettling than that. The company who provides the tracking software, called comScore, is not new to spyware. http://www.benedelman.org/news/062907-1.html

The Sears VP responsible for this is a former VP of comScore. http://community.ca.com/blogs/securityadvisor/archive/2008/01/02/2nd-response-to-rob-harles-vp-of-sears-shc-community.aspx (last paragraph of the post).

Somethin' sure does smell funny round bouts here.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Nilych]

I used the managemyhome.com, and a name/address/phonenumber. It listed all transactions, going back to 1982.

Also, people give Sears far too much credit. I'd wager Sears has little idea of how much was being tracked. They're probably seeing a scant percentage of the data being recorded, most likely in a pretty chart format.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Svartalf]

Unfortunately for all, the trend has been towards companies going to the very short term thinking
instead of sustainable things. Offshoring, etc. are more good solid examples of what I'm talking
about. All short-term, short-sighted thinking. Sure, you might see a couple of quarters of profit
by doing that, but after that, you're going to lose all of it because of the problems you brought
on by doing it. In the end, most publicly traded companies are worrying about "shareholder value"
and looking at the current stock price. In this day and age, you can't even look at that- that
stock price isn't the shareholder value, it's the shareseller value because you
dipwads don't do dividends and only base the return on an investment on the sale of the stock.

All you're worrying about at that point is the capricious mood of a bunch of people that daytrade.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[rtb61]

Sounds like a potential ex-Sears VP is double dipping on salaries or simply has to much focus on the value of his comscore (hitbox/visual sciences/webside story) stock options rather than the public image of the company he is meant to be working for rather than ab-using.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Dilaudid]

Companies are impersonal entities - so are websites like slashdot. And open source groups, and countries, and trade unions, and churches, and families. They don't care about people, they just care about their own objectives.

I've read this comment: "companies are wrong because they just care about profit" about 20 times on slashdot. It's often modded +5 by people who like to read the same thing every day. Like a mirror reflecting a mirror, no light is shed, no information is uncovered, the distorted reflection becomes darker and darker.

If you made this comment, or modded it up, here is some information for you:

Companies, like people, are good and bad. Companies are made of people. People who refuse to take responsibility for their actions, or their company's actions, are cowards. The reason why companies like sears are so bad is because they are populated by cowards, who make clever little excuses like "it's the corporation's fault", "it's the profit imperative that made me stop caring". The tech that installed this packet sniffer probably used these excuses. The suit that requested it doesn't know why it's wrong. The bureacracy caused by these incompetents is the real cause. Note that Apple and Google don't have problems like this - but they're pretty profitable for shareholders, no?

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Neil Jansen]

That's actually not universally true. I've sat in a lot of meetings with very senior, very well paid people (and their associated lawyers) and have heard them literally say "we wouldn't be breaking the law, but it wouldn't look good in the press". Many companies value their image and reputation extremely highly and doing something which leads to the company being embarassed, even if it's 100% legal, would be a firing offence. Still, companies like AT&T, HP, and others do very despicable things, even going as far as breaking the law (AT&T's cooperating in warrantless wire tapping, HP 2006 spying scandal). Somehow they're still doing well, with double-digit profit numbers in some cases.

I think this is because most people don't care about the news, unless it involves a celebrity in rehab or something equally stupid.

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[gstoddart]

Companies, like people, are good and bad. Companies are made of people. People who refuse to take responsibility for their actions, or their company's actions, are cowards. The reason why companies like sears are so bad is because they are populated by cowards, who make clever little excuses like "it's the corporation's fault", "it's the profit imperative that made me stop caring".

My entire point was that judging the morality of a company is pointless. Corporations operate in a moral vacuum. I'm not even saying it's inherently bad that they do. I'm not even saying "companies are wrong because they just care about profit" -- that's their function. I'm simply saying they do these things, and decrying the "morality" of the people who made the decisions is irrelevant.

It's not cowardice that causes people to do dubious things for companies -- it's a complete lack on incentive. The ones doing it don't even need to make any excuses like "it's the corporation's fault". Many of them don't need to; if you're not willing to do it, someone else is in line who will happily to do it and collect your salary. It's not a matter of assigning blame. Sometimes, the reward system doesn't take into account trying to be nice or moral -- weasels get promoted.

Now, a company can choose in its mission statement to adhere to a code which is slightly higher than the minimum level of effort required. Lots of them do it, and they continue to be profitable, the Body Shop for example. They're just not required to.

Society could choose to try to hold companies to a higher "moral" standard. But, they haven't. Companies (ie like Sony and their Rootkit and Sears now) do these things because either they don't know or don't care about the ramifications. They also do it because, as you say, there's a huge entity which is the corporation and most of the parts operate without knowing what the others do.

Companies operate according to their guiding principles and the people who direct them. But, without a little bit of nudging, they may not always choose what we think is "right". However, look at the performance of "Ethical Funds" and "Sin Funds" and see which you'll make more money on over time.

As with all things, it's more complicated that good/bad or black/white.

Cheers

Re:What is Sears Looking For?

[Dilaudid]

I agree that companies need to behave ethically, and I generally disagree with regulation for enforcing this - but in this case, if it isn't illegal to bundle rootkits and packet sniffers it should be. However I don't think profit incentive encourages behaviour like this...

1) Sony and Sears are the two examples. Both hoped to generate profit through their ideas I assume - but both were stupidly ill thought out schemes. Both were unlikely to succeed even if they were undetected. Both were bound to be detected. The publicity from both schemes will damage the companies involved. Bottom line - these schemes were never likely to increase the profit of the business - management failed to stop these schemes before they started.

2) Sony and Sears are both facing falling incomes as their competitors carve up their former marketplaces. These companies are failures. They were already failures before their stupid and wrong spy schemes.

I believe the failure (2) and the stupid schemes (1) run from the same root cause - they are badly run. Maybe as you're saying they need some help and oversight - but I'm saying without oversight, these companies will stop their bad behaviour anyway because they are doomed. The same thing is true of Enron - they were lying and stealing, but they were only doing this to fund their inability to run a profitable energy business. Their actions were stopped not by oversight but by equity analysts suspicions about the accounts.

I thought it was interesting you mentioned the focus on short term bonuses in the original post - I think that's a damn important point. The current sub prime, insider trading and hedge fund problems in the financial industry are all caused by a focus on the end of year bonus at the cost of all else. But I think Buffett is a good example - he runs a strong moral firm. He invests long term in businesses that do things, and he doesn't rip people off because life's too short.

Screwed Up

[coop247]

In my opinion this is worse than the "communities" some e-com sites have you join that secretly charge your card $2 a month, at least that you see on your CC statement. Also, does it put anything visible in your Programs folder or does this program show up in Add/Remove Programs?

Re:Screwed Up

[halcyon1234]

In my opinion this is worse than the "communities" some e-com sites have you join that secretly charge your card $2 a month, at least that you see on your CC statement.

Those "communities", my friend, are called "porn websites"

Re:Screwed Up

[robot_love]

In my opinion this is worse than the "communities" some e-com sites have you join that secretly charge your card $2 a month, at least that you see on your CC statement.

Those "communities", my friend, are called "porn websites"

Dude! Where are you getting pr0n for $2 a month? Sign me up!

Re:Screwed Up

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get a bargain on porn, you end up wanking to ... bargain porn.

(LMAO. capthca = "erector")

Re:Screwed Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Also sounds worse than those pharmacy branded and/or film branded image file viewers that you get with CD copies of developed photos that also happen to have the nasty habit of wrecking havoc on registries related to CD-ROM burners. (Such features you don't discover until a parent has to use the "official" software on such photo CDs. Let alone that there is better image viewing and editing software already on the computer which doesn't break things and can read the strangely numbered .jpg files on the photo-CD just fine.)

BTW, anyone know how to fix such messes? (At least I'm glad it's not _my_ computer.)

I'm an ex employee

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for Sears years ago, and this does not surprise me one bit. They are an evil company that will stop at nothing to make a buck. Oh, and do you want me to put that on your Sears card?

This is Sear's Privacy Statement

[Bryansix]

Not only will we track where you browse on our website which has legitimate marketing value for us; we will also break into your computer without your knowledge and track every other website you visit. You are not safe within your own home.... muahahahah.... I mean we do this to PROTECT your privacy. We will not give out this information unless we get your consent or we get a good enough offer for the data. Anything over one cent per one thousand records consitutes a good offer. We do not disclose offers for data purchase so pretty much you have to assume we are giving your browsing habit data away. We also do this to PROTECT your privacy. Thank you for choosing Sears.

Re:This is Sear's Privacy Statement

[tyraen]

That was too long for me to read so I just clicked past it.

What a deal!

[charlesbakerharris]

This is the least expensive install Sears has ever done for me!

Re:What a deal!

[Bonewalker]

No, it wasn't. It will just cost you more later, when they have your bank account number, routing number, username, and password, and they happen to accidentally hire Joe Schmoe Just Out of Jail who doesn't give a fuck about his job or anything else, and he drains your account.

Is that going too far?

Re:What a deal!

[charlesbakerharris]

Mod parent -1 (NoSenseOfHumor) or -1 (TakesSelfTooSeriously)

Cue Sony Parallels

[WizMaster]

What does SEARS need with this info? Honestly, this just smells bad. I won't call them evil just yet but this is pretty serious from a privacy POV.

Also, isn't it about time we push for a law that makes these privacy agreements shorter and in english (not legalese). One thing I like about CC is that they have a layman's terms version of all their licenses as well as the legalese ones. Not only would people be more likely to read them but it makes it hard for companies to bury important info several pages deep.

I realize that the layman's version would be long as heck but it's better then nothing (and people would STILL be more likely to read it since they can understand it without thinking to hard).

Re:Cue Sony Parallels

[Bryansix]

The problem is there is no law even requiring a privacy policy that I know of. Companies can put whatever they want there. The reason CC companies are regilated with tier disclosures is because money is changing hands. Here it is just information that Sears is taking from you. Hmmm, maybe we can sue them under the DMCA?

Re:Cue Sony Parallels

[digitalunity]

Oddly enough, I'd never thought about it this way.

If someone were to create a program whose sole purpose was to protect both registry information, browser history and private information as a collected and copyrightable work(see Feist Publications vs. Rural Telephone Service), the DMCA would apply to companies who make any attempt to circumvent such a program.

This would create great liability for nefarious companies who exist only for the purposes of collecting information for resale, as well as for other companies such as Sears who are duped into agreeing to help distribute the said software. Not only do I see a lot of money here, I see a big slap on the wrist for any company that doesn't clearly and concisely describe what information they're attempting to collect from you without your explicit permission.

Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[tbg58]

This is a fairly obvious example of what has happened to the concept of "the customer" in the retail space. The old principle of serving the customer still applies, but the identification of the customer has changed. The customers of K-Mart Sears are no longer the people buying products in stores and use the Sears website; the new customer is the stockholder. The people who buy products and use the website are just commodities to be traded like anything else.

Installing spyware on website users? Why not, if the website users are just inventory to be controlled and traded.

This is true not only in retail, but in IT. Do you think the people who actually buy, say, operating systems, are the customers of the software companies that make them? Think again. Their customers are their stockholders too. The purchaser is just a commodity. Maybe companies which commoditize consumers need a wake-up call to remind them that consumers are still the real customers. A PR mess like this sends a bit of a reminder, but the only message that really hits home is one that impacts the EPS.

Re:Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[i.r.id10t]

The customers of K-Mart Sears are no longer the people buying products in stores and use the Sears website; the new customer is the stockholder.

This is true of any publicly traded company. How or what that company does to produce max profits for its shareholders is a different matter...

I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Zordak]

Wow! I'm so FLAMING HOT MAD about this, that I would boycott Sears if not for the fact that I never shop there anyway. Are you with me people?! MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD! Punish Sears by refusing to purchase from them the things you already don't purchase from them!

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[$RANDOMLUSER]

If you're buying screwdrivers and wrenches and pliers anywhere else, then you're going to the wrong place. You can take a 25 year-old pair of (Craftsman) pliers back to Sears and go "I broke it" and they'll give you a new one.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[contrapunctus]

Sometime morality has a price. I'd rather voluntarily pay for it again than involuntarily give up personal info. Call it the price of privacy.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[RandoX]

What if you go in and say "I lost it"?

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[lbmouse]

Craftsman and Kenmore are pretty good brands. I think that was the only reason I ever *used* to shop there... but not any more after this fiasco. Looks like it's going to be Snap-on, Makita, and Whirlpool for me from now on.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[TooMuchToDo]

I got a Sears giftcard for Christmas. As much as I deplore them, I still want to use my giftcard. What am I supposed to use it on? Blackjack and hookers?

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, Gift Cards. The gift thats cash but is somehow better than giving cash, and its not only cash but cash that can only be spent in one location, expires, and is easier to lose!

Marvelous inventions.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[LWATCDR]

They will say that you better go look for it.
It is a warranty not insurance.
Craftsmen hand tools are top of the line and they stand behind them. You don't need any ID or proof of purchase. Just bring in a broken craftsman tool and they will replace it.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Spleen]

I agree with the grandparent. The tools from sears are much too valuable to me to boycott the company as a whole. You can opt to not join the community online that contains the spyware, you can educate users and complain to the company without boycotting all products and services. I have yet to see a product boycott ever truly work. The bad press generated by awareness or suggestion of a boycott often makes companies back off.

Punishing a merchant by boycotting even the methods of business that they do right as well as the wrong ones does not send the right message. Walking into the store, picking up a wrench, and paying cash for it does not have more of a privacy cost then any other merchant. If you pay by credit or check, you're spinning the same wheel at sears as you do at any other stores. How is Sears to know that the message is we don't want your spyware? Refusing to walk into a retail store isn't sending that message, declining their EULA does.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Evangelion]

If you are in Canada, Canadian Tire will do the same.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[sconeu]

Except drill bits (and other items which may be expected to break due to normal wear and tear).

They wouldn't replace the broken 1/8 bit from my Craftsman SpeedLok set/

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[sarathmenon]

Throw the blackjack out, for pete's sakes!

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[sconeu]

Kenmore and Whirlpool are one and the same.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[MrP-(at work)]

http://www.certificateswap.com/

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Zordak]

I believe you can do the same with a Snap-On tool.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[TooMuchToDo]

Thank you sir! There goes the blackjack and hookers though.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Dare nMc]

too valuable to me to boycott the company as a whole.

if spyware is your only complaint, I agree. Agreed, you will never get sears to change through a boycott. I was a craftsman tool junkie, probably spent a average of $500 a month their, I quit cold turkey 3 years ago, and haven't missed them. Craftsman tools are available from Kmart,Lands' End, The Great Indoors, Orchard Supply Hardware, etc. And they honor the warranty just the same.
No matter how you deal with a skunk, your eventually going to pickup the stink. By not going to sears for anything, you make sure their are competitors, and they stay, not the skunk.
I got fed up with all their practices, 1) they keep dropping warranties from more and more of their tools, don't trust that friendly return to stay, and dropping lines tools with no replacement available = no warranty. 2) the ripped me off with their credit card, and didn't care. 3) they repeatedly ripped off my girlfriend in the tire shop (her response was "well you go their too") 4) they 2* sent her out knowingly with missing lug nuts, and no warning, and a "prove it" responses.

Harbor freight is my new tool junkie location, some of their stuff is crap, but most Pittsburgh tools also have lifetime warranties. And if you play the on-sell game, it is easily 1/3 the cost of sears. so buy 3 and throw away whatever breaks.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[crackspackle]

I know you're comment is meant to be funny and that Sears is often seem as a lower-tier store; However if you research their exclusive brands like Kenmore and Craftsmen and the products they offer, you'd find they are consistently rated among the best performers in their class by independent organizations like Consumer Reports. On the average, they are also cheaper than their counterparts and they are also only available at Sears.

As an example, I spent close to $800 on a Dyson Vacuum cleaner to remove dog hair left by my Labradors. It did not work. After reading some articles, I sold it and went with a $300 Kenmore that did work, phenomenally better than the former product. I am not trying to be a Sears advertisement and I don't like what they are doing here but it's worth pointing out you can't just shop elsewhere and get the same thing.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Dare nMc]

Craftsman tools are available from..

wow, didn't realize their owned by Sears, well Fastenal and the on base stores (AAFES) also sell exchange craftsman, and aren't own3d.
Stanley tools, and Pittsburgh have been a adequate replacement for me (I live and work out of town, so mail order replacement of Stanley tools generally works better for me anyway.)

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Mesa MIke]

But you have to chase down one of their trucks, because they don't have any stores.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[slaughts]

After my new Whirlpool washing machine chewed up $500 worth of clothes, I will never buy Whirlpool again.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Joe Jay Bee]

Or, to quote Dilbert, "Why trade perfectly good money for something that does the same thing only less well?"

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Zordak]

That's not a bug. It's a feature. It's part of their "Keep Mechanics and Carpenters Fit" initiative.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[afedaken]

If we could buy blackjack and hookers of the old school craftsman quality at Sears, I think most slashdotters would be willing to overlook a little bit of spyware here and there. :-)

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[zvar]

Not really, at least not completely

Kenmore is not a 'Brand' as much as they are a 'Brand Name'.
They sell Whirlpool, GE, Amana, Maytag, and just about any other appliance mfg. one can name under the Kenmore name.

If you look at the model number of the appliance, the first digits tell who the mfg actually is.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[Spleen]

Craftsmen is owned by Sears. So even if you buy the brand from another outlet you are still putting money into the same pocket. If you find another brand you like that's great! I've been hosed on the "lifetime warranty" from other brands, but not *yet* from Sears.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[lgw]

I don't think any products are actually manufactured as "Kenmore" - aren't all Kenmore products just rebranded products you can buy elsewhere?

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[lgw]

How did that happen? Did something break exposing sharp edges?

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[slaughts]

Apparently there were several rows of 'drain holes' that had sharp edges. I found out this was a known problem with manufacturing, and was fixed in about an hour by a repair technician. Of course this was after it destroyed the clothes, specifically some very expensive polo shirts I had.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[lgw]

Wow, that really is simple negligence on their part! Amazing.

Re:I Didn't Know Anybody Still Shopped at Sears

[hawk]

A friend of mine worked in Sears hardware back in high school, at a long gone Sears store. At one point, a customer wanted to return a battered tool box, and he responded with, "Quite frankly, sir, this looks like you drove over it with a truck."

The customer wanted to take the discussion outside, but his manager wouldn't let him . . .

btw, either Home Depot or Lowes (or both?) will now swap Husky for broken Craftsman.

hawk, who once used a tool chest as a chock for a heavy vehicle on a hill

Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[dtjohnson]

They've been slowly going out of business for years as their clueless
management phases out of retail products and services and whiles away
its days with speculative
investments. Now, maybe they're going into the spyware
or pop-up advertising business to cash in on the dot com
boom. Sears is the poster boy for the pointy-hair boss in
Dilbert.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[kellyb9]

Not only does the article you posted sound like a positive thing for Sears, It's 11 months old! I highly doubt it reflects current market conditions. I'm not really sure if Sears is going out of business - always seemed like they did alright with their hardware sections - but if you're going to make claims, please have sources that are accurate.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[BigHungryJoe]

If Sears goes out of business do my Craftsman tools still have a lifetime warranty? Who will honor that warranty?

I'll be goddamned if I'm going to buy TWO hammers during this lifetime.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[el_smurfo]

You can see how good Cramer's advice is by clicking the link to Sears Holdings current valuation at the top of the article. 11 months ago, he was pimping Sears at 237...Today, it's 103.50 and dropping like a rock.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[Anonymous Coward]

agree with above, it just reminded me of the promotion they pushed years ago.
The promotion about no more sales. That tactic bombed.

Sears is struggling that is apparent.

I for one have not shopped their for years mostly due to their
pushing of service contracts to the point of being obscene.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[krazytekn0]

Go buy Snap-On tools, not only will they have a lifetime warranty but you'll be paying for them for the rest of your lifetime also!

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Craftsman is about the only thing they have left of any real value. Someone would probably buy the product line. Maybe one of the home improvement chains?

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[Bob C. Cock]

Well after I RTFA I'll be sure to divest myself of the shares of SHLD I currently own. Now if they could just hit the break even point....

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[couchslug]

"If Sears goes out of business do my Craftsman tools still have a lifetime warranty? Who will honor that warranty?"

Considering the Craftsman user base, the brand could be sold off.
Danaher makes most of the tools so if Sears dies it needn't affect production.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't tried to exchange an older rachet or like tool and seen the shit the hand you for a replacement.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[apenzott]

Currently Home Depot (Husky) and Lowes (Kobalt) have some very nice "house branded" tools. There was a time that they would cross-honor their warranties against any broken Craftsman tool that was brought in--no questions asked (replace broken Craftsman tool with their Husky or Kobalt equivalent.)

In the event that Sears (and Orchard Supply Hardware, another Craftsman tool reseller) go under, I would not be surprised to see Husky and Kobalt extend their warranties to cover broken Craftsman tools as part of a future marketing campaign.

Re:Surprised that Sears is still in business?

[jbengt]

Sears have had their problems in the past, but what they are since K-Mart (well, Lampert, really) bought them out is not the same Sears anymore.

At one point in the past (the '80s, when I first started dealing with them as a consulting engineer on construction projects), Sears was a huge conglomerate, the largest retailer in the world, the owner of the tallest building in the world, of Allstate, Homeart, and Dean Witter, among other companies, and the creator of Discover Card. But their "core" retail business was threatened by cheap dicount department stores like K-Mart. Sears changed its mind about once a year on whether it should compete as a discount chain, or distinguish themselves from the discounts as a better, more upscale place to shop. While confusing shoppers that way, the cheapest of the cheap, Walmart, snuck up on both Sears and K-Mart and passed them both up.

Still, though their retail business barely made a profit in good years, they were profitable overall because of their other businesses. But, shareholders, at least a few of the bigger individual investors, insisted on splitting up the conglomerate, and get Sears to "focus on their core business", retail. Though that proved bad in the long run for Sears, if you were a stockholder, you made gobs of money from the stocks in the spun-off businesses.

The final straw was when Lampert bought the bankrupt K-Mart and used it to buy Sears and creating "Sears Holding". The stock of Sears was undervalued because of their poor performance, but they have value because of all the real estate they own. You can be pretty sure that Lapert will squeeze what he can out of the assets and leave little for the customers or employees.

New FTC rules should state . . .

[DodgeRules]

... that all company officers and directors MUST have installed on every work and home computer the same software that they are installing on everyone else's computers. I'll bet money that none of them have installed this onto their own computers.

Re:New FTC rules should state . . .

[IBBoard]

If you're talking of most company directors and CEOs then you might find that they will let it be installed on their machines. That is until you explain to them, in very simple words, what this thing they off-handedly agreed to actually is.

Somehow I doubt most CEOs know the technical details of the crap they install on machines. They probably just get told "the user agrees to a license, we install this program and then company X gives us a couple of dollars per computer over Y computers".

Re:Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[Cpt_Kirks]

They "serve" customers, alright. As in, "To Serve Man".

Plain English

[spaceyhackerlady]

What we need is Plain English legislation, generally. If a law, contract, or other legal document cannot be understood by a person of average intelligence and reasonable education, it is null and void.

Yeah, I know the lawyers would hate it. Tough.

...laura

Re:Plain English

[LordKazan]

the problem with that is that plain simple language is also immensely inprecise.

Re:Plain English

[viking099]

It depends on what your definition of the word "is" is.

Re:Plain English

[lattyware]

Indeed. If only we could rely on common sense. Unfortunately, it appears not to exist anymore.

Re:Plain English

[Gandalf_the_Beardy]

There is an organisation in the UK called the Crystal Mark that provides plain easy to understand English on places where it matters, like contracts, bills, Govt documents etc. http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/ No idea if there is something similar in the US but I think it's a cracking good idea and it's used as a selling point by services and companies in the UK.

Re:Plain English

[LordKazan]

Common sense is anything but, and is also subjective. For some people, including the father of our current president (And probably our current president) it's only "Common sense" that I don't have any rights as an American because I'm an atheist.

Re:Plain English

[MillionthMonkey]

Yes, now we have law. We've had it for centuries. Common sense is innate, natural, intuitive, and subjective. The law is wordy, prosaic, precise, and unambiguous. Which one would you rather fight over?

Tell StopBadware.org

[Animats]

StopBadware should hear about this. It's exactly the sort of thing that gets a company a big red X on the StopBadware site. Plus some really bad publicity.

StopBadware is sponsored by Harvard Law School, Oxford University, and Consumers' Union. There's heavy legal firepower available if needed.

Really just another reason...

[rickb928]

...to promote full disclosure, and support those who spot these abuses and expose them.

When the corporations decide that getting caught doing dumb/unethical/improper stuff costs them more than whatever the stuff was going to get them, then this will stop.

Until then, one more corporation to put on my do-not-shop list. For a very long time...

Re:Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[Cro Magnon]

I'd like to see how Sears will produce profits if everyone quits buying their products. As President Truman said, "The buck stops here". Different "buck", but you get the idea.

Now we know that and ... nothing will change.

[Opportunist]

We know about that now! And we'll boycott Sears into bankrupcy!

Well, we won't shop there anymore, maybe. But bankrupcy? Hardly. How many people know about that? A hundreth of a percent? Maybe? How many care about it? Even less?

"So Sears tracks my online surfing? So what? I got nothing to hide, and their stuff is so CHEAP!"

That's what you'll hear as the reply of Joe Average. People have not discovered yet that their privacy actually does have some value. Unfortunately, corporations have. Not only a value, they also tacked a price tag to it, too.

Maybe we can play on people's greed and envy. "THEY are making money of something you give them for free! Shouldn't you get something for it, too?" Maybe that's the angle how we can sell privacy...

Holy crap, I sound like a marketing guy. Please shoot me.

Boxer shorts. K-Mart!

[snarfies]

Dr. Bruner: Do you feel more relaxed in your favorite K-mart clothes?
Charlie Babbitt: Tell him, Ray.
Raymond Babbitt: K-mart sucks.
Dr. Bruner: I see.

Nobody checked his resume?

[RobertB-DC]

There's a telling fact in the "2nd Response to Rob Harles, VP of Sears' SHC Community"

Finally, while we can't draw any conclusions from this, an old comScore press release shows that before becoming VP in charge of Sears' tracking program, Rob [Harles] was the senior vice president for comScore - the creator of the Sears spyware and the registrants of the domains to which the Sears spyware data is sent.

CA's Benjamin Googins is being diplomatic, of course. If the guy in charge of the "community" was previously a senior VP at the spyware company, then he clearly has a vested interest in the continued success of comScore.

If this were happening in a government agency, there would rightly be cries of conflict of interest. So much for the "perfection" of the free market over the ebil gubbermint...

FWIW, I haven't stepped foot in a Sears in about 5 years, when I needed a spark plug socket, and I can't recall my last purchase before that. And I've rarely been in a K-Mart since they closed most of their Texas stores -- the ones in other states still suck just as hard as they did before the buyout, but it's hard to compare one strong vacuum against another.

Re:Nobody checked his resume?

[spun]

So much for the "perfection" of the free market over the ebil gubbermint... No, no, no. See, this is because we don't have enough free market, and too much ebil gubbermint. If we just got rid of all gubbermint except that what keeps y'all off my propah-tie, then the Divine Invisible Hand of Adam Smith would descend out of the clouds and put all to rights. Everyone who claims the Hand would just touch us in a bad place are pawns of the Great Satan, Karl Marx!

Seriously, there are people right here on Slashdot who think that way. You can spot them easily because they all get serious wood when you say the name "Ron Paul."

Re:Nobody checked his resume?

[dmleach]

If this were happening in a government agency, there would rightly be cries of conflict of interest. So much for the "perfection" of the free market over the ebil gubbermint...

Yep, there would be cries of conflict of interest. There would be committee meetings, inquiries, perhaps a grand jury or two. There would be years of investigation by a special prosecutor. The talk shows would have fodder for weeks. Then, in the end, some low-level deputy would be reprimanded. All this done at a taxpayer-funded cost of thousands.

On the other hand, you personally can stop shopping at Sears. You can teach your friends what's going on and advise them to stop shopping at Sears. It may not destroy the company, but neither will slapping the wrist of the underling in the above example. With hard work and some luck, you could lead a charge that punishes the people who deserve punishment.

On the other other hand, you could decide that internet abuse isn't worth the trouble, and keep this in mind next time you're looking to buy a drill or a refrigerator. If that's the case, I thank you on behalf of all us other taxpayers whose money you saved.

That's the perfection of the free market.

Virus signature ID: Sears.ComScore

[BUL2294]

I would ask that all antivirus/anti-malware companies use Sears.ComScore to ID this virus (oops, I mean "service"). Sears will have free advertising in all anti-malware apps just like Sony.Rootkit does!

Then again, Sears' lawyers may request to have it changed to Sears®.ComScore.

Buried

[davidc]

Page 10 of a 54 page document? Sears must be Douglas Adams fans!

This reminds me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where it was pointed out that the public plans for the hyperspace bypass were to be found in the bottom drawer of a locked filing cabinet, stuck upside-down, in a disused toilet with a sign on the door saying 'BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD!'

Re:Buried

[sconeu]

Please turn in your geek card now.

Those weren't the plans for the hyperspace bypass, they were the plans for the bypass being built in England by the local board, of which Mr. Prosser was the representative.

The plans for the Hyperspace bypass were on display at Alpha Centuri.

Re:Buried

[geminidomino]

Man, just as I was taking a break from coding an accts-receivable system while listening to the H2G2 audiobook...

Damn, diet coke in the sinuses *hurts*

Reminds me of Radio Shack

[markgohara]

Kind of reminds me of Radio Shack when they required you to give info to make a purchase in other words it sucked.

Re:Reminds me of Radio Shack

[sqlrob]

They never required it. A simple "no" always worked for me.

Re:Reminds me of Radio Shack

[Anonymous Coward]

Your saying I gave my phone number for nothing? I'm on don't call list so RS can call me due to prior,they haven't yet called,what were they doing? O yeah database. It's cool you said NO but I never thought to say NO. If you say NO to RS where will it end? YOUR EITHER WITH US OR AGAINST US. or SCREW YOU FUCKERS?

Re:Reminds me of Radio Shack

[Intron]

Give them 703-482-0623. It's the main switchboard at the CIA.

Re:Reminds me of Radio Shack

[PRMan]

I worked at Radio Shack. We always asked politely and never had a problem with cash purchases with no data. That was the policy. Surprisingly, many people wanted us to put them in because they weren't getting the sale flyers after they moved.

so many levels of dumbness

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did Sears even set up their own online fanboy forum? And who would even join a circle jerk forum for a department store?

Throughout the Universe

[jefu]

But does the legalese really apply reasonable to those user licensing agreements that say that the site owns your content "throughout the universe". Does the copyright registration apply at the time a signal from earth could arrive at (say) the Small Magellanic Cloud? Or do they (as lawyers) think it applies from "now"? Talk about copyright for a "limited time"!

Not only confusing legaleze, but physics.

Get Anybody's Purchase History

[duerra]

Wow. From one of the comments in reply of TFA:

OMG! Check out a sears site managemyhome.com. Once you register you can look up purchase information for ANYONE by just putting in their name address and phone number. Sears has you enter a code and says that keeps you info safe, but that is pretty useless -- I think that just prevents a script from being created, but DOES NOT stop people from entering in any eles info to get the purchase info on big ticket items -- this could bring casing someone's house to a whole new level!! What's that smell in the air? Oh yeah, a class action lawsuit.

Linux installer?

[thewils]

Say, where's the Linux installer? What? You mean this is only for windows users? Sweet!

Re:Linux installer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not windows it's an IE problem USE OPERA in windows DUH

Re:Linux installer?

[thewils]

Not windows it's an IE problem USE FIREFOX in windows DUH

there, fixed it for you.

commercially viable efforts?

[fahrbot-bot]

From TFA: 'we make commercially viable efforts to automatically filter confidential personally identifiable information such as UserID, password, credit card numbers, and account numbers'

Let me fix that: "we do as little as possible..."

Re:Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[GreyWolf3000]

You're like...completely right (in my opinion).

To expand on the economic side a bit, the stock holders own shares of publicly traded companies because they believe those companies will earn profit and grow in the future. Investment is a beautiful but risky thing. A company that no longer maintains the ability to expand and sell more widgets/services will not realize the growth needed to bring a return on the investments. That means a company like Sears always needs to expand and sell more and more stuff in order to compensate for the "interest" that must be paid out to the investors. Basically, investors will pull out if a company can't realize a certain growth in share value, so the company must grow. Hence, it is reasonable for the company to try and push spyware on to products they sell, because it opens them up to a new customer base--advertising companies willing to pay to gain access to marketing information people's computers. Companies who's cash is 'borrowed' from investors will always face this problem. They can't afford not to grow.

Do I lay blame to these "evil" companies for trying to screw over the consumer? Some of it is their fault, but I tend to also (read: not entirely) lay blame the consumer for making spam, spyware, rootkits, etc. profitable. Just as companies have an ethical code we more or less hold them to, consumers also must take responsibility and understand that their choices also effect change in the marketplace.

I really like supporting companies like Google and Whole Foods whose management teams profess to see value in giving back to the community. I also respect individuals who understand that the only way large, evil companies can seem to rule the world is if the majority of a society tolerate them. And if the majority of the society is not willing to tolerate these companies, then they won't buy the crapware filled computers, and no laws are needed. If the majority of the society is willing to tolerate these companies, than "Democracy" has failed.

Basically, I find that a society that needs huge amounts of laws above and beyond basic things like anti-trust in order to keep corporations in check will end up having a bunch of citizens who can't make responsible decisions for themselves. That means that such a society cannot support a democracy. Scary thought to me.

Nothing new

[millermj]

I kind of see it both ways. Everyone expects a company to understand its customers, and to keep up with customer trends. Even when those trends include "people are pirating music because they don't want to pay for it" or "people in Singapore are pirating software because the licensing is too expensive." ...yet no one wants their purchasing behaviors tracked, employee activities mined, etc. Employers want the freedom to be creative with the information retrieved so that they can more easily change with the market, employees and customers want any information they provide to be at least anonymous and preferably full disclosure on how the information is used.

Since I'm developing product requirements, that kind of information si very useful to me. A market research company gathers it and my department buys the research so that we can develop better products. Most of the information gathered is from people who have volunteered to share how the product is used. Try getting a software pirate to do that! So how do you gather data that's truly unbiased? I'm not a hypocrite... you'll find a lot of information about me online; yet I share the same concerns about identity theft as everyone else. Just what piece of personal information can be used to identify me vs. an imposter if everything the imposter needs can be learned from a spock.com, MySpace, or facebook profile?

Sears' spyware idea is extreme by any measure. There are less intrusive ways of gathering data about potential business opportunities. Referring URL tags, for example. Gathering data from the outside about who visited from a sears domain address as another. ...but just where do you draw the line?

Re:Nothing new

[geekoid]

With radio Shack, when I made a purchase I could choose not to give them information, and I could still make my purchase.

What are you people thinking?

[pongo000]

From TFA:

Every website visitor that joins the Sears community installs software that acts as a proxy to every web transaction made on the compromised computer.

Wait a second...this so-called "privacy breach" requires a user to sign up, give away personal information, and download and install software?

Oh, the horror!

Give...me...a...freaking...BREAK! Whining and bitching because someone is too lazy to read a 54-page privacy document? Intimidated by such a beast? Then DON'T INSTALL THE SOFTWARE!

If there ever was a story that needed to be tagged "nothing to see here, move along," this is it. When will the public wake up and figure out that they expose themselves to nefarious evil-whoring overloads whenever they download and install unknown software from the Internet?

Re:What are you people thinking?

[geekoid]

a 54-page privacy document is unreasonable. To say 'don't install the software' isn't practical.

Sears is a trusted brand. They are using the trust to abuse consumers.

Re:What are you people thinking?

[wpiman]

Correction: they were a trusted brand.

Re:What are you people thinking?

[dangitman]

Yeah, I can't possibly see how an iconic American company committing an act that is most likely criminal in most states would be newsworthy...

Things to know about Sears

[wytcld]

First off, Sears isn't Sears anymore. Sears was bought by Kmart after Kmart was bought by what became Sears Holdings, which is controlled by hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert, who apparently is incompetent:

In the period ended November 3, the company earned a sickening $2 million (1 cent per share). That's far below the $196 million ($1.27 per share) it earned in the same period last year. It's also 49 cents below what analysts had been expecting.

That's right, under his management profits went down over 99%. I've been to his stores, and the merchandising is awful. There's certain stuff I'd rather buy from Sears and/or Kmart than Wal-Mart, Home Depot or whoever, but the stocking and selection is so haphazard now that, except for the Sears appliances, the only thing you can count on finding is bizarre junk on sale.

And now with this story, maybe it's time to stop even trying. (I had a minor loyalty to Kmart because I'm originally from their part of the country; and to Sears because the Craftsman guarantee policy is good.)

Re:Things to know about Sears

[bwcbwc]

Actually, the other way around. K-Mart was going into bankruptcy (and may actually have filed for reorg, I forget) and Sears bought them up. The holding company bit is correct.

Re:Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[mapkinase]

wow. At the risk of being redundant, off-topic and overrated, I should say that I have never seen more insightful comment on modern economy at /.

Good job.

WTF ??!!

[sherriw]

What the hell is Sears thinking? Didn't they learning anything from Sony's rootkit fiasco? This is a complete outrage. Look at the type of people who normally shop at sears. It's demographic is older women who I would guess are not normally tech-savvy or aware of online security issues. This stinks like rotten fish and I hope the word gets out. Bad Sears, BAD!

Forfeit the corporation

[wytcld]

I'll vote for the first presidential candidate who specifically cites this as behavior that should result in dissolution of Sears Holdings - the loss of its status as a corporate "person" and the sale of its assets to fund future government enforcement against such blatant abuses of basic American and human rights by other corporations. Perhaps current laws won't allow justice in this case, but it wouldn't take long to change that. This is behavior that clearly calls for (1) jail time for the top executives - 10 year minimum, and (2) the end-of-life of the corporation committing the atrocity.

Re:Forfeit the corporation

[taustin]

Yeah, and the 300,000+ employees should all be jailed, too, because "I was just following orders" isn't an excuse.

Or maybe you're a knee-jerk reactionary. Or maybe just a moron.

Spyware not needed

[rbanffy]

A properly configured router and a proxy server are all anyone needs for this.

Why bother installing spyware to track web usage if you control the network?

Sears deserves the special attention...

[hyades1]

...of that eclectic and somewhat, ahem, "unruly" segment of the on-line community that uses phrases like, "Big Fucks Fly Out To..." I would dearly love to see the internet cleansed of Sears' presence the same way you'd fumigate your house to get rid of cockroaches, bedbugs or other loathsome and potentially dangerous pests.

Re:Part of a general trend: consumer as commodity

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! It's a freakin' COOK-BOOK!!! #!@94023kd;a^OFF-HOOK

Bastards.

[Duncan Blackthorne]

'nuff said. Talk about capitalism gone bad! I hope they get the crap sued out of them over this.

Today's lesson is...

[sarysa]

Never sign up for any unnecessary service that requires you to install software, EVER. This is much worse than, say, Yahoo Messenger which installs the toolbar that changes all your settings or...well, I can't reference anything else because that 15 minute annoyance was enough for me to be more cautious than ever with 3rd party software. I used to think Sears was at least "reputable", but this thread has convinced me to stick with Macy's/Nordstroms for clothing (theirs are better anyway), Ikea for furniture/large appliances, OSH/Home Depot/Lowe's for hardware, and Bed Bath & Beyond for beyond.

Not that I ever shopped at Sears in the last 5 years anyway.

On a related topic, if a merchant requires special software for me to purchase from them, I'll just take my business elsewhere.

Re:Today's lesson is...

[dangitman]

Never sign up for any unnecessary service that requires you to install software, EVER.

So, people should never play WoW, WWII Online, or any other online game that is subscription-based, or use an online EPG for their PVR? After all, they are unnecessary and require the installation of software.

Sears = good parking at the mall

[bonkeydcow]

When I go to the mall I park by Sears because there are no cars there. There is easy access to the mall proper from the Sears entrance. That's about the only use I have for sears anymore. I have used the craftsman lifetime warranty, but only because my tools broke... not sure if that's a positive or negative.

true but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually at any respectable company (not that sears is respectable), you would be escorted out of the building by security and not allowed to stand around.

Re:true but..

[simcop2387]

so go change clothes, come back and you're no longer an employee, you're a customer, and if they escort you out AGAIN, just make a scene

Re:true but..

[Oktober Sunset]

By the sounds of it, I doubt the boss could have mustered the organisational skill required to get security.

Re:true but..

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but see...then he would have been TAZED and we would have had to go through all of THAT again...

Re:true but..

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be nice, but that is not how the real world works.

companies blacklist ex-employees and will not allow them back at that particular store.

this goes from anywhere to walmart to well sears.

Re:true but..

[Svartalf]

Not always true. And unless they openly state that they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, they have to allow them in the store if they're "shopping"- all he needs do is pick up some cheap-assed item off the shelf to legitimize it. If they throw him out then, they've got a lawsuit on their hands.

I've never been "blacklisted"- and if I ever find proof thereof, they'll get sued bigtime as it's
not at all legit.

wait, what?

[Deadplant]

Ok, let me get this straight... buddy wants to join this online community run by Sears Inc.
He browses to the website and runs through the registration.... so far so good.
He then receives an html email with a link which he clicks on (mistake 1), this brings up a website which asks him for personal information (mistake 2) and then offers to send him an executable file to run on his local machine.

He actually downloads and runs it (mistake 3) and then is surprised that it is spyware?

What did he think it was?
a random cool screensaver? some sort of game?
(pssst, here a tip: you don't need to install additional software to access the web)

I'm all for publishing this and giving Sears a corporate image pummelling but you'd have to be born yesterday to actually fall for such a thing.

Oh, and for the love of god; stop clicking on links in emails!

Re:wait, what?

[dangitman]

I'm all for publishing this and giving Sears a corporate image pummelling but you'd have to be born yesterday to actually fall for such a thing.

More likely, born 60+ years ago. Those born yesterday are probably savvy enough to avoid this.

Re:wait, what?

[instarx]

(pssst, here a tip: you don't need to install additional software to access the web)

Oh? What about Acrobat, Java and Flash? Or their updates?

Re:wait, what?

[Deadplant]

You are correct.
I wasn't really thinking straight because I tend to install the core apps like the browser itself, flash and media players shortly after setting up the OS and then never again for several years.
I was also taking for granted pre-existing knowledge of what the core legit apps are.
I think I was also just a little cranky..

Mazal Tov!

Sears: The Scam Business

[bradgoodman]

Sears is often described as "A finance company with a retail arm". Though that concept doesn't really apply here, it draws a parallel.

Without going into gruesome detail, I believe Sears is in "The Scam Business". I know, I know - such a large, public (?) company wouldn't pull such shenenagans on such an ongoing basis, would they?

One day I found that may Sears card, which hadn't been used in years was getting charges on it for some "Sears Health Care" insurance plan I never signed up for. Upon calling "Sears" to debate the charge, they refused to remove it from my bill, and I was livid. They told me to "Call the vendor, and debate it with them".

"What?! This is not a regular "Credit-Card", it's my Sears card, you are the vendor." Much to my surprise, despite the recordings that identified themselves as "Sears" when I answered the phone - the people on the phone told me that they were "CitiBank", not "Sears". "Okay" - I thought - so CitiBank bought the credit cards from Sears? This is sort of okay - but I've never heard of a credit card refusing to remove a fraudulent charge. Not only did they do this, but they went as far as to tell me that if "the vendor" did not volintarily remove the charge, I had no recourse.

No...this is too unbelieveable - CitiBank, too? Surely I must be completely confused.

So I reluctantly took the number that CitiBank gave me for "The Vendor", which was something like "Sears Home Health Care" or something and called them. When they guy answered the phone, I immediately demanded to speak to a supervisor and gave no other information. After he reluctantly put me through to a super, the super immediatley came on and agreed to remove the charge and "cancel" the "Health Plan".

Wow - that's interesting - because I never even told him (or anyone) why I was calling, but he knew/assumed this was the case! Are all their calls like this??

I was so blown away by this, I did a little research on the web. It turns out, Sears, and "Sears Home Health" - or whatever, had already settled a class-action lawsuit with the state of California for this type of deal, and had one in the works with Florida. On looking at a few sites on Business scams, on the popup "short-list" of buisinesses they list, both "Sears" and "Sears [whaatever] Health" were always listed!

I refuse to shop at or buy anything from Sears, and enter only to use their bathroom. You probably don't believe my story, or the level of "conspiracy" involved, as I hardly do myself.

My point of this post, is in-fact in response to the original topic: Do you think that a large, public company like Sears risk penalties, suits and their reputation, and would deal in these little petty shenanigans to try to make an extra buck?

Yes, they damn well, would.

Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a regional manager at Sears, and I'm not one bit surprised by this. They don't really care about right and wrong as long as they have positive cashflow. Every day, I had to encourage my employees to "know how to make money." The truth is, people, and by extension, corporations, will take desperate measures in desperate situations.

The management thinks in old ways. They don't really value innovation or best practices. Their computer systems are over 20 years old, and they just don't understand the Internet. Why should they be expected to treat customers as valued partners when they can only see them as a food source?

Gosh, I'm glad I left. There's no way to reach the closed minded except to watch them painfully learn for themselves.

You know what I mean...

[sarysa]

Obviously, games are exempt. I mean unnecessary things like "Browser enhancements", "Desktop enhancements", "Download helpers" (not to be confused with major software companies' download managers) etc. I'm the geek in my family, so when I flew 3000 miles out to visit them I ended up optimizing two peoples' computers in my spare time, amongst other techy tasks. One had a "Desktop Manager" third party program that caused her system to freeze on boot-up every other time, and for some reason she had her task manager disabled. (as Administrator no less) Both had their 512MB of ram bogged down with tons of useless background programs.

The point of my original post was: If you don't need new software to do what you need to do, don't download it. This should work to WoW and other games, as you obviously need to download the software to play it.

Wait...what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I despise malware distributors as much as anyone else, but am I to understand that the author is savvy enough to inspect network packets yet blindly installs some "community software" from sears and/or kmart? What did he think he was getting?

Exchange or return.

[LWATCDR]

I can understand wanting a recite. It is proof that it came from that store. Target didn't need mine because I bought it with a Credit Card and they could look it up. So they had an electronic record.
People ripe off stores with returns and exchanges all the time. It is fine of you feel that other stores have a better policy and shop there because of that better policy. I just don't feel that policy is to the level of evil.
I will say one thing that I do like about Target and Sears better than Walmart and Best Buy. They don't treat me like a criminal. I am sick of Walmart and other stores demanding to check my recite when I leave their stores. Also the service at Target seems better.

spelling nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "receipt" is a difficult one to spell. So here's how you can remember. A "receipt" is proof that you "received" something. And you can remember to spell "receive" by the rule "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'".

Also, fruit is "ripe". When you steal from a store, you "rip" them off, as in "grabbing something and tearing it".

Other than that, your English is excellent. By your transliterations, I would guess that you are a native speaker, or at least were educated in an English-speaking school. But usually only relatively young students make the types of spelling mistakes you have; and your user ID would indicate you are not that young. You could be Scottish, I suppose.

cool, anecdote wars!

[hawk]

We'll believe the side with the most evid^h^h^h^hanecdotes! :)

hawk

MOD PARENT UP

[shentino]

Er, I don't think a demonstration of the principles of logic counts as flamebait.

Spying on You While Exposing Your Privacy

[Doc Ruby]

While Sears is spying on you, it's also exposing your purchase records to anyone with your contact info. What penalty will Sears pay for violating its own privacy policy? Will it be on lay-away?

My turn to tell the anedote...

[hummassa]

I worked at the Belo Horizonte store for Sears in the holiday season of 1987 [they have gone out of biz here in Brasil in 1990 or so -- hope it wasn't my fault :-)].
I worked at the credit granting section as a temp assistant, and our manager was great, but the "corporate policy" in general sucked and treated employees as potential thieves all the time (security checks when you are leaving the store, security crew constantly looking more for employee wrongdoing than shoplifters, etc). I was invited to stay employed, but I was just entering college, and I didn't need that kind of shit at the time. My aunt, who worked at their credit section since the mid-1970's [she has gotten me the gig], was laid off when Sears faded away a couple of years later.
That is to say, sometimes your manager cannot overtune shitty corp policies.