p2pnet.net News:- Printer company Lexmark has been accused of installing spyware on customers’ computers.

Undocumented software on Lexmark printers silently reports back to a Lexmark-owned company website, say reports on the Usenet comp.periphs.printers newsgroup, quoted by silicon.com.

“One user said that after initially denying the allegations, Lexmark acknowledged installing tracking software that reported printer and cartridge use back to the company for survey purposes,” it states. “He claimed that Lexmark said no personal data was taken by the program, and that it was impossible to identify anyone by it.

“However, users installing the software are prompted to fill in a registration form including their name and the serial number of the product.”

The program, found on the X5250 installation software, “embeds itself in the registry and monitors the use of the printer through DLL files in the c:program_fileslexmark500 folder,” says the newsgroup posting, according to silicon.com.

Data go to http://www.lxkcc1.com [192.146.101.142].

The site was down when we went for a look, but the registrant is/was:

Lexmark International Inc.
740 New Circle Road NW
Lexington, KY 40550

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See:-
spyware – Spyware charge levelled at Lexmark, silcon.com, November 12, 2004

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