KennyR:
I completely agree that this kind of market research technique is completely harmless. I think the main reason people take offense to Lexmark using this approach is because it's generally considered bad manners to "snoop" on any part of someone's computer usage whether it be innocent or not. If they were to include a check box in their preferences program which explained the feature fully and allowed users to turn it off if they so wished, then it would probably be seen as completely acceptable.
As a rule I don't like Lexmark printers anyway. They're primarily aimed at the cheap end of the market, and with printers it really is the case that you get what you pay for. Skimp on your budget for a printer and you really do end up with a rubbish product. Usually their printouts are "ok" for general usage, but as you correctly point out the cartridges don't last very long and are often expensive to replace which usually means it's cheaper to buy a new printer than a new set of cartridges, because a new printer comes with them included anyway.
If others are in the market for printers I'd also recommend to steer clear of Epson printers. It's probably more a personal opinion issue, but I've had three Epson printers and I've not been impressed with any of them for printer performance or cost of repacement parts.
I've become quite a HP fan when it comes to printers. I've got their 1200 series at the moment which prints A3 paper and everything. The quality of printouts from this and other HP printers I've had is very good.
Brian
