Lenovo agreed on Tuesday to resolve a dispute with the Federal Trade Commission (PDF) for the scandal Superfish, to pay 3,5 for millions of dollars as a fine, and to implement a series of measures that would prevent similar cases in the future.
The construction company has allowed a company called Superfish to install VisualDiscovery bloatware on hundreds of thousands of systems built in August 2014. The software allowed the collection of sensitive personal information from customer computers, such as credentials connections, social security numbers and many other data.
Lenovo admitted the problem a year later and released a special tool to remove bloatware, describing the cooperation of with her sUpeRfisH as a “significant error.” Lenovo then promised to keep its systems clean of all malware.
That didn't stop the FTC from taking legal action against Lenovo, and as part of the settlement, it specifically prohibited the company from having pre-assembled functions software που θα μπορούσαν να καταλήξουν σε advertisements στα προγράμματα περιήγησης. Με άλλα λόγια, η Lenovo θα πρέπει να αναφέρει την αλήθεια για κάθε ειδικό χαρακτηριστικό των εφαρμογών που έρχονται προ-εγκατεστημένες στις συσκευές που πωλεί.
In addition, all Lenovo models released in the next 20 years must come with pre-installed software security which will have to go through a security check by a third party. If the product serves ads, consumer consent will be required as to whether they want them on their devices.
Hopefully, the FTC will implement more such measures in companies that do not respect the consumer, but their main concern is to earn as much as possible. A good example is Microsoft with the application Get Windows 10 who withdrew (after too many reports).
According to FTC's Terrell McSweeny, the Superfish application was using GW10's practices to mislead Lenovo product users.