Sears settles with FTC after swiping tons of personal info from customers.

Sears knows everything about you. More here.

Sears Holdings Management has agreed to settle a complaint from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it failed to tell customers about the wide range of their personal information, including bank statements and prescription records, it collected through a downloadable software application, the FTC said.

Sears Holdings, owner of the Sears and Kmart retail chains, invited some visitors of Sears.com and Kmart.com to become members of the "My SHC Community," paying them $10 if they agreed to download "research" software that would confidentially track their online browsing.

However, the software not only tracked browsing, but also monitored customers' online secure sessions, including sessions on third-party Web sites, the FTC said. The Sears software collected the contents of shopping carts, online bank statements, drug prescription records, video rental records, library borrowing histories, and the sender, recipient, subject, and size of Web-based e-mail messages, the FTC said.

The software would also track some computer activities that were unrelated to the Internet, the FTC said.

Sears asked these customers to "participate in exciting, engaging, and ongoing interactions -- always on your terms and always by your choice."

Sears, in a statement, said the research project ended a year ago. The software was removed after the project and all personal information was destroyed, Sears said. No similar studies are planned, the company added.