So now that we are getting over Robert being suspended from Facebook, Robert being re-instated at Facebook and getting sick of reading about it I sit back and wonder what all the fuss is about.

Really … especially in light of of some serious allegations being leveled against Sears and their My SHC Community on Sears.com. While we in the tech blogosphere get all up in arms over someone admittedly breaking Facebook’s TOS we have a brick and mortar company colluding with Comscore to install that company’s tracking software without your knowledge when you join the community.

According to Techdirt this software will then begin to track all your activities online and send it back to Sears and Comscore as well:

After that, all of your online activities — including to “secure” sites like banking sites — is sent directly to Comscore, despite Sears’ website insisting that none of the data you share will go to anyone but Sears. As for the “community,” it doesn’t seem like there is one. The security researcher who signed up for the community says that once the software is installed, there’s no obvious indicator that it’s installed or running — and he received no “communications” from the so-called community whatsoever. Basically, it sounds like it’s just a trick to get you to install this tracking software while hoping you’ll forget about it

In addition to this as reported by Brian Krebs of the Washington Post blog Security Fix it appears that your shopping habit on the Sears site end up being publicly searchable:

Sears is having a bit of a rough day with the privacy community. The company got off to a rocky start with revelations that many customers who gave Sears their personal details after shopping at the company’s Web site also were giving away their online Web browsing habits to marketers, thanks to snooping software silently installed (and ill-documented) by a Sears marketing partner.

Now, it appears the company’s Web site may also be making those shopping habits publicly searchable, at least as they relate to products purchased in Sears stores and/or via its Web site.

As bad as this is; and it is the worst example of corporate malfeasance in safeguarding our data or respecting our privacy, it amazes me that we are so easily sidetracked by something as stupid and mundane as the Scoble-Facebook nonsense. All these Web 2.0 proponents carrying on about transparency and suggesting that Scoble is the new hero of the open data movement because he stole data from Facebook.

But other than sites like Techdirt; who have followed this from the beginning, or security related sites like Bruce Schneier’s blog this whole story has been a dull thud in the tech blogosphere and that is appalling. Hell even Valleywag took time out from rumor mongering to write about the matter. I guess though for people who think it is okay for Robert to steal what is now someone else’s data they must also think that what Sears and Comscore is doing is okay as well.

Hell even Sony got more of a smack down over their rootkit DRM of CDs that what is happening to Sears or Comscore. Maybe because Sears isn’t a music or movie producer it doesn’t count or maybe because it’s regular folk that are getting screwed with that it doesn’t raise an eyebrow in the tech blogosphere.

Either way the fact that a phoney ass uproar over Facebook defending its TOS rates more attention than what Sears and Comscore is doing is just sad.

Listening to: Enigma - LSD: Love, Sensuality and Devotion - Sadeness, Pt. 1

[tags]Sears, Comscore, spyware, privacy[/tags]

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