A somewhat sobering article appeared over on TechGoblin (click here to see the original story) regarding a Laptop Rental Company that installed software to take pictures using the computer’s built-in webcam and to transmit them back to the rental company. Of course, they never DISCLOSED this minor detail to their customers.

Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that such behavior is well outside of what one would consider proper conduct with respect to a customer’s privacy. Apparently, a lot of customers agreed with my opinion as they opened up a class-action lawsuit against the company.

Well, the surprising part of this little story is that the judge recently decided not to issue an injunction against the laptop rental company (that is, the judge did not order them to stop). You’ll have to read the article yourself  (see the link to the original article I listed previously) to try to understand why it is the judge decided the way he did. I for one seem to have too much common sense to be able to understand the twisted nature of our legal system.

The best that I can come up with is that the judge did not necessarily disagree with the plaintiffs that what this laptop rental company was going was despicable, but that he was saying that the WAY the plaintiff’s attorney was trying to argue the case was not going to be very strong.

No matter what the reason, apparently the judge did not feel it necessary to put an end to this invasion of privacy.