Yet another reason to not "rent-to-own" a computer

[Judge Roy Bean]

Aside from the financial stupidity, rent-to-own computer systems have a hidden (until recently, that is) 'feature':
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/05/05/36358.htm

One of the nation's largest rental chains spies on customers by equipping rent-to-own computers with secret software that remotely snaps their photos, takes screen shots, tracks keystrokes, and snoops on private communications, a class action claims in Federal Court.

[fortinbras]

If it's just the rental company putting in spyware, you're lucky.

I bet a lot of cybercrooks are planting secret spyware on borrowed or rented computers, so they can steal credit cards numbers and the like from future users of the same machines.