Computrace and who REALLY owns your ThinkPad?

[Digitalhorizons]

After my discovery of the "legitimate" bios rootkit called Computrace being enabled and activated on a laptop of mine and Absolute Software telling me the original owners did NOT say the laptop was stolen, but needed to contact them to deactivate it, along with the tech support saying I shouldn't do anything with the laptop personally until this is resolved, *inhales* AND the fact that Absolute effectively has a kill switch for my laptop they can technically activate anytime they wish. The question came to me.
Who really legally owns my ThinkPad I purchased? Me, Absolute Software, or the original owners?

[RealBlackStuff]

Theoretically the REAL owner is the person/company who owned it at the time Computrace was activated, assuming they agreed to -and knew about- the activation.

[Digitalhorizons]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action suit against Absolute over this, I guess the only reason why there hasn't is cause practically noone knows about it outside large corporate IT sectors.

[MikalE]

There needs to be a way to permanently deactivate this service once the lease(s) are up on the unit by either the refurbisher or the original leasee.

I don't know of any private individual with a business class Thinkpad or other brand that has ever had this installed on a system.