Are Lexmark's printers spying on you?

Lexmark, makers of printers and scanners, has been caught monitoring users' printer, scanning, and ink cartridge usage. Apparently, users on the comp.periphs.printers newsgroup found that the Lexmark installation software embeds itself in the registry and monitors printer activity via a file located at c:\program_files\lexmark500. While Lexmark originally denied the allegations, the reality of the spyware is pretty straight-forward, and they have come forward to admit their wrongdoing. Better late than never? It's not clear what they are monitoring, though: Lexmark say they're just tracking printer and cartridge usage, but the registration information and packets being sent say otherwise.