Every Click You Make ... Sears and Kmart Could Be Watching You

Computerworld - Customers taking part in a marketing program launched by the parent firm of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Kmart Corp. may be unintentionally providing the retailers with significant personal information, according to antispyware researchers.

Harvard Business School assistant professor Ben Edelman contended last week that the My SHC Community program falls short of Federal Trade Commission standards because it fails to tell users exactly how its tracking software gathers the personal data of some users of the social network.

The software is not something youd want on your computer or the computer of anyone you care about, Edelman said in an interview. It tracks every site you go to, every search you make, every product you buy, and every product you look at but dont buy. Its just spooky.

Edelmans criticism comes about a month after CA Inc. senior engineer Benjamin Googins described the software in a blog post as a significant threat to privacy. He said that it monitors all of a users Web traffic, keeps track of secure sessions such as visits to bank sites, and sniffs through e-mail headers. All of the gathered data is sent to Internet measurement firm comScore Inc., whose VoiceFive Networks Inc. subsidiary wrote the software.

Sears Holdings Corp., parent firm of both retailers, launched the social network in March.

Its still kind of in its early days, said Rob Harles, vice president of My SHC Community. Its mainly used right now for research, but we want to open it up [to create] dialogue with our customers.

He noted that members have the option of installing the tracking software and that less than 10% of members are using it. He did not disclose the total number of community members.

He also contended in an e-mail that we have thoroughly vetted this process to ensure that it follows accepted legal guidelines.

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