On the heels of Lenovo’s massive $3.5 million fine for preinstalling adware on laptops without users‘ consent, Hewlett-Packard is jumping in with both feet when it comes to installing spyware on its PCs without the consumer’s permission.
According to numerous reports gathered by Computer World, the brand is deploying a telemetry client (a system data that is uploaded by the Connected User Experience and Telemetry component), on customer computers without asking permission.
The software, which was first identified on November 15 of this year, is called “HP Touchpoint Analytics Service” and appears to replace the self-managed HP Touchpoint Manager solution. According to the official productivity description, it features “the tools you need to ensure all your managed devices’ security — and brings you greater peace of mind”. The problem is, it’s installing itself without permission and is wreaking havoc on customers’ systems.
And the consumers are noticing:
On 11/18/2017 Hp Touchpoint Analytics Client was installed on my computer without my concent, I’m assuming it was installed in the background as an update to Hp support or framework. However it happened I don’t appreciate it’s sneaky take over of my computer’s system resources. From yesterday to today it’s been making my computer work so hard I can hear it like cranking away and the light in the back of my computer is flashing rapidly in-tune with the cranking. –HP Forum
HP has not released an official response to the complaints either and it’s not yet clear how the new driver is being installed. It may have come with the latest Windows updates, or via HP and its support assistant processes, but regardless, customers aren’t happy. “I understand that it hoovers all sorts of telemetry data — and I am not willing to share too much of it really, definitely not without my knowledge,” says one user on HP’s forums.
There is a speck of good news, however. According to Engadget, the offending driver can be removed relatively quickly and easily, but against a wider backdrop of repeated privacy scandals, that’s hardly the point and only semi-comforting to those affected.
How dare HP try to look at my porn stash!!!!
I won’t buy any of their products, these sorry SOB’s need to be sued. I have a Dell laptop, next time I will get a chrome book.
Chrome book, as in Google???? Boy your brave, i guess you must not value your privacy much.
These reports were probably faked by their competitors, such as Dell.
In my IT venue (one of many hats I wear), I am constantly removing any and all proprietary software from ANY manufacturer that comes pre-loaded in a new machine. I usually start with any cloud storage software, back-up software that came with the machine and so on. One particular setting always needs to be changed – in remote settings (right click on your ‘computer’ in the start menu and select ‘properties’) be sure to turn off any previously/preset remote connection allowance [allow remote assistance connections to this computer] (be sure to check under the ‘advanced’ setting as well – first).
I would celebrate if someone took out these corporate types who screw us over and violate our rights.
In order to have complete control in the new world order that is coming, nothing is private, all is known.
Wow! Glad I read this article! I was seriously thinking about buying their I-7 or I-9 gaming rig. I would be pissed off if I spent that much money for a fast computer only to have spyware causing it to lag!
There is an end run. Pain in the butt. Wipe the brand new harddrive and reinstall the OS. Along with the stuff you want. I am guessing that is what everyone needs to do with a new computer. Figure out what you want and don’t want and make sure your system is clean, and configured the way you want, before you start using it.
Anytime I see these words: convenient, user-friendly, I automatically assume it is hovering up every bit of data on me it can. Do I get that check? No. I do not.
I’ve got 2 HP laptops myself. But I also have a Toshiba and an Acer as spares. So I’ll pull the hard drives from the HPs and destroy them, then the HPs will go into the river.
I solved that problem by building my own computer 7 or 8 years ago. It only has software on it that I put on it. It has been running perfectly all these years. I also don’t have any anti-virus software because it’s unnecessary if you don’t double-click on email attachments, view email as text only, and don’t go to strange web sites.
Go with Linux.
Seriously set it up with a an option to create random IP addresses. Then go through an ISP that provides an anonymous IP address every time you go on the Internet.
Avoid tracking.
What do you think Microsoft has been doing for decades.
They sell software that they patch until it’s utterly useless. It doesn’t matter the version, it just keeps having the same failure points.
Did it ever occur to anyone that this is all planned obsolescence?
Just keep paying in.
I took a series of “state of the art” IT courses. They told me clearly that designing for speed was stupid. My real life experience was the complete opposite of this. I knew it was all about selling machines.
I grew up on FoxPro that got faster every year until the day Microsoft bought it. Then it turned into shit like every other Microsoft product. Microsoft is all about supporting the third estate.
Around ten years ago I bought my first new computer in years, an HP. I set it up and the thing was slow, constantly hung up on 100% CPU usage. I bought it off Amazon “new” for $150 less than what the HP web site wanted.
BTW, this was a high end model with all the go fast stuff like lots of memory, graphics cards, etc.
A friend of mine recommended a computer geek type guy who comes to your house and works on computers. The geek was an Asian kid about 22 years old. He sat at my computer for 45 minutes, fingers flying non-stop, and cleaned it up. He showed me a log of the stuff he removed. Adware, malware, web site re-directs, homepage takeovers and so on – dozens of them.
It was $85 well spent. I’m pretty good at computers for an average user but this kid was doing things way over my head like cleaning up registry files.
He said “re-sellers” buy the computers from the factory and install all this garbage adware from various vendors for a fee. That’s how they can undersell the factory on Amazon and other web sites. All manufacturers sell to re-sellers.
Once he cleaned it up the HP ran pretty good. I now have a Dell desktop, factory direct, and it works OK. However, upgrading to Windows 10 this last year has been a pain. I have one laptop and it hung up for six hours on one of the Win 10 upgrades and I did a forced shut down. It still works somehow.
shtfplan is bogging down my connection, at every story, and the adblocker, which I am running, this morning, shows 59 intercepts.
I occasionally play with the coding, when I am very bored. Almost none of the programming, online, will have anything to do with the intended reading material.