Lenovo used the UEFI/BIOS tables to load crapware back into a fresh retail user-installed windows setup. The bios table was named Window Platform Binary Table
Lenovo? That sucks. I was considering a Thinkpad to get out of Apple's stranglehold. I'd put Linux on it of course, but I'm still not happy buying from a company that pulls crap like that.
I’m not defending the shit Lenovo‘s been pulling these last few years, but it’s worth noting that none of it (neither the Superfish fiasco nor this) affected ThinkPads. Apparently their consumer line and ThinkPads are run quite separately. I hope that keeps them from messing up the ThinkPads...
That mechanism only works through cooperation of the OS installation process. It's actually the OS that asks the device whether there is any crapware it is supposed to ingest and then goes on to ingest it.
As long as you consent to that, everything is fine I guess. The software is doing its job as an agent of its users.