Dell has been pre-installing spyware on their computers that is apparently quite difficult to remove, and then asking customers to pay $49 to have it removed.
The company installs a program called My Way Search Assistant which tracks where you go on the Web and sends the results back to a central server, where the data is used to send customized pop-up ads to your machine. According to the writer of the article, it is very difficult to uninstall the software, and a call to Dell revealed that the support group at Dell seems to be unaware that the company is doing this. Once you tell them you have spyware, they send your call to the Dell spyware hotline, where they ask for $49 to help you remove it.
You might think that's bad enough, to charge to remove software installed deliberately by the company. But wait! There's more!
Dell gets paid by My Way to put the software on the machine.
That's right...Dell collects cash to put the snooping software on your machine, then wants you to pay them to take it off. Good work if you can get it, I guess, but a sure fire way to alienate your customers.
What this really reveals, aside from the fact that Dell has no ethics at all, is that profit margins on Dell equipment are so thin that they have to resort to doing this sort of thing.
Add Dell to the IT Hall of Shame, along with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft.