Those fancy new Lenovo models announced today, the ThinkPad T, X, and L-series, will not come with insecure adware installed on them, at least not in the USA. The FTC managed to rouse itself enough to deliver a light caress to the wrist of the PC maker, with a fine of $3.5m being imposed in the ruling today. On a possibly more positive note, Lenovo will also be required to hire an external security auditor to vet any bloatware they intend to place on their machines, though the verbiage of the ruling posted by The Register does not make it clear that they would have any ability to stop Lenovo from installing software that didn't pass their audit.
The other part of the ruling which customers should take very close notice of is that Lenovo "will obtain the consumer’s affirmative express consent" before installing random software. Make sure to carefully read those pop ups when you first fire up a ThinkPad and think twice before clicking OK.
"The US government's trade watchdog, the FTC, has finalized its settlement deal with Lenovo on charges the PC builder sold Americans machines crammed with intrusive adware."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Yes, Your Amazon Echo Is an Ad Machine @ Slashdot
- IBM lobs sueball at travel site Expedia for using some old Prodigy patents @ The Register
- Intel Says CEO Dumping Tons of Stock Last Year 'Unrelated' To Big Security Exploit @ Slashdot
- TSMC to outpace Samsung in 7nm volume production in 2018 @ DigiTimes
- devolo dLAN 1200+ WiFi ac Powerline Networking @ Kitguru
Common practice among
Common practice among prosumers is to wipe a brand new laptop anyway, and that relates to exactly 0.1% of people that buy Lenovo products.
Wait, does this mean
Wait, does this mean Microsoft could potentially incur a similar penalty for the adware it ships with ‘clean’ Windows 10? Or is that treatment reserved for non-US based companies?
Remember Superfish was never
Remember Superfish was never on Think-x line machines in the first place.