While I would not call comScore software "SpyWare", exactly, the way that Sears and KMart decided to use it - and how they didn't inform visitors to their site they wre being tracked (by installing the comScore tracking software without realizing it) does constitute an invasion of privacy. Big mistake.
According to Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng - Sears: Come see the softer side of spyware:
"…late last year, Sears.com and Kmart.com began asking users if they wanted to participate in a "community" online (presumably a community made up of Sears and Kmart aficionados). In late December, security researcher Benjamin Googins at Computer Associates noticed, however, that the "community" actually installed software from comScore, a market research firm, in order to track the web activities of the sites' visitors.
Googins stated on his company's blog that Sears had installed spyware which transmitted everything—"including banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage"—to comScore for analysis. This was all allegedly done with no notice that anything was being installed, and it ran contrary to documentation about the community that said any data collected would stay within Sears' hands at all times.
"
The funny thing is …. all of this would have OK if people opted in - if that, indeed, was what they chose to do (be tracked) - but that's not what they thought they were doing when the opted in to a online community (that apparently never really materialized… all they ended up opting into was comScore tracking their every move).
Someone at Sears / K-Mart ought to go to jail for this - it just takes a couple of bad apples to give the whole Web Measurement field a bad reputation - and that's what this situation does - make people even more reactive to getting rid of all cookies (they see cookies as spyware … it's not) - but given the way some sites like Sears and K-Mart are acting - I can almost agree that one can't be too careful, or make any assumptions that sites that collect information are doing it in a way that's non-harmful to you (that helps you). Most of the time, I would think, the opposite - even though it's not true - most of the time, tracking is just to find out how to make the site better, give the customer what they want faster and better.
Too bad some people use measurement tools the wrong way.
