SpellAndShield Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Origin-EULA-PC-Gaming-Glorified-Spyware-DRM,13285.html Part of Origin's EULA allows Electronic Arts to snoop through your system -- including installed and uninstalled software -- and send that information to third-party service providers. >ZoomHonestly EA, what are you up to now? The gaming publisher is currently under fire by outraged consumers after a close examination of the End User License Agreement for Origin reveals that it grants EA the right to snoop through desktops and laptops once the user agrees to the terms. If that wasn't invasive enough, the agreement also allows EA to share all that information to third party service providers. "You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services," the agreement reads. "EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION." Now here’s the kicker: if EA customers don't agree to the company's snooping and sharing of private data to third parties, then they won't have access to exclusive PC games like Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The Origin agreement also doesn't allow the user to opt out at any time after the initial acceptance, meaning that they either must choose to share their personal information indefinitely, or not play EA's exclusive PC games at all. Reddit is currently rallying EA gamers to contact the company by email or snail mail to protest against the invasion of privacy. According to EA's privacy policy instructions, consumers can first try to settle the matter with the company directly using the contact info at http://www.ea.com/1/privacy-contacts. Consumers can also drop an email to the relevant statutory privacy body or advocacy group, presumably the Electronic Frontier Foundation which typically stands up for gamer privacy rights. Then again, Origin's invasive nature may have been one of the reasons why EA chose to launch its own client in the first place: to see who is pirating EA games... if it indeed scans all installed and uninstalled software on a system, that is. So far EA hasn't publicly responded to the complaints. What do people think about this? There has been crazy debate on the bioware social network about this, is EA going too far? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elvinkun Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 (edited) Yeah, by installing Origins, you basically agree that EA owns you, your family, computer and all your data and knowledge - and reserves the right to share any and all of it at any given time with other companies. It's sort of old news tho. You can either go wth it or stop playing any future game from EA and associated companies. Thing is, all companies have something similar, but this one is a bit more aggresively written... You'll just have to believe and hope that they'll just monitor your gaming experience and use it to "Make gaming better", instead of scanning your HDD for private information and data. Edited October 1, 2011 by elvinkun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpellAndShield Posted October 1, 2011 Author Share Posted October 1, 2011 Yeah, by installing Origins, you basically agree that EA owns you, your family, computer and all your data and knowledge - and reserves the right to share any and all of it at any given time with other companies. It's sort of old news tho. You can either go wth it or stop playing any future game from EA and associated companies. Thing is, all companies have something similar, but this one is a bit more aggresively written... You'll just have to believe and hope that they'll just monitor your gaming experience and use it to "Make gaming better", instead of scanning your HDD for private information and data. I am willing to bet money this drives more people to pirating, which I imagine is what they wanted to prevent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elvinkun Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 (edited) I am willing to bet money this drives more people to pirating, which I imagine is what they wanted to prevent! ...And that too, yeah. Lately, I noticed that getting pirated game is quite ... simplier than buying it... Just thiking of Assassins Creed now, stupid me, bought it, and then couldn't even play when my net went down, then had problems with activation and then couldn't play again, cause their servers were down. And that's for singleplayer. Then there still is the chance that you somehow piss off the developer and they turn your game off with no refunds. Pirated version, as far as I know, you need to install...and play. You even get the savegames on your computers I heard. Well. Ubi is a bit extreme case, but many companies ...EA... are trying to do just the same, paying customers will have a hard life, compared to pirates... But rather than giving bonuses and easy acces to customers, they will complaing about terrible piracy and spend money and time on tracking torrents. Poor us, poor us... Edited October 1, 2011 by elvinkun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpellAndShield Posted October 1, 2011 Author Share Posted October 1, 2011 I am willing to bet money this drives more people to pirating, which I imagine is what they wanted to prevent! ...And that too, yeah. Lately, I noticed that getting pirated game is quite ... simplier than buying it... Just thiking of Assassins Creed now, stupid me, bought it, and then couldn't even play when my net went down, then had problems with activation and then couldn't play again, cause their servers were down. And that's for singleplayer. Then there still is the chance that you somehow piss off the developer and they turn your game off with no refunds. Pirated version, as far as I know, you need to install...and play. You even get the savegames on your computers I heard. Well. Ubi is a bit extreme case, but many companies ...EA... are trying to do just the same, paying customers will have a hard life, compared to pirates... But rather than giving bonuses and easy acces to customers, they will complaing about terrible piracy and spend money and time on tracking torrents. Poor us, poor us... Thing is, EA will blame the pirates, saying, look they made us do it! it's their fault...and then create more of them. Companies need to accept that there will always be pirates and just deal with it, rather than creating weird and unfair measures for paying customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iv000 Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 So basically if you have Origin installed, you allow EA to scan your PC whenever they want and send that information to anybody.If every future EA game will use this I'm not buying any EA products ever again.I hope something will be done against this, because I do not want to give up games like Mass Effect 3 because of EA's spying software.But if it will stay like this, I will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fonger Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 so you buy the boxed game take it home install it balk at the EULA take it back to the store where USA law says the item is non-returnable (opened software) where do you take your consumer complaint next!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WrathOfDeadguy Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 You agree that EA may collect' date=' use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically [b']to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services[/b] to facilitate the provision of software updates' date=' [b']dynamically served content,[/b] product support and other services to you, including online services dynamically served content If the above phrase isn't corporate doublespeak for "personalized advertisements" then I'll eat my left shoe with a side order of fries. Remember that EA was the company that introduced in-game advertising to the mainstream with BF2142... I'd bet my bottom dollar that personalized advertising is the reason that provision is in their EULA. My answer to this' date=' as with any other grubby spyware, is simple: it will not be installed on my system. I'm sure that will irritate me if an EA game that I want on PC ever comes out again, but I do not pay money to be spied on. I'll buy the console version if I want it badly enough, but I did [i']not[/i] just build a new PC to install spyware on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halororor Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 Well, I haven't bought even a single Ubisoft game since they released Uplay, I don't see myself losing any sleep over doing the same thing with EA games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HellsMaster Posted October 1, 2011 Share Posted October 1, 2011 IMHO Origins over STEAM. That is all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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