Sears Publishes Your Purchase History Online for Anyone to See

Sears isn’t doing too well with this new-fangled Internet thingy lately, are they? First they go and install spyware on their customer’s computers (read article), and now they’re opening up their customer’s purchase history to anyone who cares to see it!

Would you like to see what your neighbors bought for Christmas? How about your boss, how big is his flatscreen TV? No problem - all you need to do is visit their new site, ManageMyHome.com, sign up for an account, and then look up the purchase history of anyone you have an address and phone number for.

Clearly they didn’t set out to put your private information in the public eye, but their system has no way of authenticating you to the address and/or phone number you enter. Perhaps making you enter your receipt number, or the last 4 digits of the credit card you purchased the item with, etc. would have provided an additional level of security. But alas, no, and now your friendly neighborhood burglar can canvass the area and find out who has the best stuff in their houses.

C’mon Sears - you can do better to protect the privacy of your customers. Agree? Let Sears know.