barcode scanners, anyone?

Yea, that's the basic summary. The bitch was each CueCat had a unique ID, so when you scanned a product, they'd note that. If the UPC of the product wasn't one they knew about, you could enter the information. The whole "payback" of the CueCat was that they'd build this database of customers and products they were interested in, and do targetted marketing. And the whole point of their baseless lawsuit was that people who were using the CueCat for other than they intended were "depriving them of revenue". Of course, since they *gave* the thing away, that case was uninforceable. Particularly since they were sent unsolicted through the mail. They were kind of slick engineering in some respects. Wel built, very low cost, and as I recall, they had a pretty good scan rate of success. The mods in the 'net show how to read the scanned codes out (I think you had to XOR everything with the unit ID, and delete some headers and trailers), and how to defeat the ID part in the unit. But they're still pretty goofy looking.

I had about 50 that I had acquired by asking for several ("me and my friends need one") everytime I went to Tech America or Radio Shack. I eventually did nothing with them, and gave them all to a friend of mine.