Lenovo Fined $3.5 Million By FTC For Spying On Users

The Federal Trade Commission just slapped Lenovo a fine worth $3.5 million for selling products with adware pre-built into them. As the world’s second-largest maker of computers, many consider this amount paltry, which basically makes the fine nothing more than a slap on the wrist. An especially minor penalty for what many consider a huge breach of trust.

The whole kerfuffle centered on a program called VisualDiscovery, which basically acted as a screening guard. Whenever users point their cursors over a program that does the same thing, a pop-up appears notifying users of this fact, USA Today reports. What’s more, it did this while the user was on the internet.

As a result, it was found that the program was built with a pesky hidden set of codes, which essentially had access to the user’s sensitive information. This included their login credentials as well as some really important details like their Social Security numbers.

Now, it’s worth pointing out that other tech firms do the same thing as what this adware does. With Google or Facebook, for example, the search history and surf patterns of users allow the companies to provide suggestions as to items, news, or information of interest. In the case of VisualDiscovery, however, it was basically hijacking the computers.

Even now, Lenovo has admitted no wrongdoing with regards to this case, even as it settled with the 32 US states involved in the complaint, Ars Technica reports. The crux of the argument that the FTC was making was that the company would have been free to install the adware if it had asked for the consent of the users beforehand. Since it didn’t do so, it was essentially considered spyware.

By and large, $3.5 million really isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. Lenovo won’t have much trouble bouncing back from this settlement.