Ars Technica wrote:

Seven rent-to-own companies and a software developer have settled federal charges that they used spyware to monitor the locations, passwords, and other intimate details of more than 420,000 customers who leased computers.

[...]

In numerous instances, data gathered by Detective Mode has revealed private, confidential, and personal details about the computer user," officials with the Federal Trade Commission wrote in a civil complaint filed earlier this year. "For example, keystroke logs have displayed usernames and passwords for access to e-mail accounts, social media websites, and financial institutions."

In some cases, webcam activations captured images of children, individuals not fully clothed, and people engaged in sexual activities, the complaint alleged. Rental agreements never disclosed the information that was collected, FTC lawyers said.

[...]

In addition to DesignerWare, the FTC action named Billings, Montana-based Aspen Way Inc. [...]

http://arstechnica.com/se...e-moments/

Rent to own is a rip off? What a shock.

I'd seen something on this probably a year and a half ago, where a couple had paid off their rent-to-own computer and the company hadn't properly documented it, and the manager approached them with pictures from their webcam. Yikes!

They weren't fined. They weren't told to stop. They were just told to let the customer know they were being spied on. Eek. "Rent-to-own" is a rip-off but this is insane!

electronic peeping toms...

In a 2011 case, one young couple was shocked to find RTO company Aaron's Inc. had used DesignerWare's software to collect information from their email inbox as well as track their online activities and even snap pictures of the couple using the laptop.

This couple had no idea they were being tracked until an Aaron's manager had come to their house to personally repossess the laptop as a result of non-payment. This manager showed the couple a picture of them using the laptop taken by the installed webcam. According to the lawsuit, the manager told the young couple that he wasn't supposed to disclose that his company had the picture.

"They never explained why they were taking the webcam photos," said Brian Byrd, 26, who entered into the RTO program to buy a laptop for his wife. "The just walked in trying to be big shots."

As it turns out, the Byrds had realized 3 months into their lease that it made more sense to make one last, lump-sum payment and buy the computer right out. The employee that took their last payment, however, had a tendency to walk away with large amounts of cash. As such, the manager assumed the Byrds were behind on payments and tracked them down using the DesignerWare tracking program.


redOrbit (http://s.tt/1oqhq)