Sears is a fine enough store. I don’t have any philosophical issues with them.

At least… not before today.

Seems they started their own MySpace-like social network (apparently they feel that their customers are nothing short of fanatical about all things Sears and that they’ll all leap at the opportunity to join an online community with other Sears afficianados). That’s all well and good, I suppose, except for the fact that signing up for the community somehow installs spyware on your computer. Spyware that tracks your every movement online, including logging in to your online bank account. Yikes!

(Look at the guy in the picture…he’s so giddy about stealing my bank account information!!)

Sears is claiming that they clearly notify customers during the sign-up process, but that’s got to be the thinnest excuse ever. What did it say to notify them, “Hi there, the form your completing actually installs tracking software on your machine that shows us all the sites you visit and your passwords?”

I know Sears is after the same thing every other store is after: demographic data. They want to know what you surf so they can better sell stuff to you (or so they can sell off the data about your habits to marketing companies). But if there isn’t a better way to get that data than this…then Sears should just accept that there’s only so much you’re allowed to know about your customers.

So, unless it’s too late… don’t sign up for the Sears online community. If you already did… well, my condolences. I also wouldn’t do any online banking or anything like that in the near future. (Geez, and people think Wal-Mart is evil!)