"For privacy, Origin is the same as Steam" WRONG!!! -Updated

[Awexsome]

At this point the people who still hate Origin over the stuff that was fixed long ago will never stop hating on it despite all the facts to the contrary. It's not even worth it to try and to talk reasonably and logically with them anymore.

They've stated what they're looking at, why they're taking it, and what they're going to do with it. All completely legit reasons.

The only attack that's even plausible I've seen to this is just basically "THEY'RE LYING!" and there's no way to prove or disprove it when the hate on EA is that strong.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Lets say EA takes your hardware specs. Then EA uses this information to better refine and update games. Better games right? Isnt that the point?

So as long as it is in the pursuit of making a better product companies can invade your privacy to their hearts dersire. Not sure I agree with that idea.

I don't want to think what condom companies will do this that as a given in the pursuit of making a better product.

 

[DoPo]

It's not just aggregate data, EA give themselves the right to take personally identifiable info too. I don't even want to think how bad they could get with all the data on my hard disk.

Where does it say so? I finally had a look for that blasted piece of document because nobody wants to quote the damn thing - people keep throwing accusation without backing them up. Here's what I found:

EULAs and Other Disclosures [http://www.ea.com/1/product-eulas]

Origin's EULA (PDF) [http://eacom.s3.amazonaws.com/EULA_Origin_9.16.11.pdf]

Spoiler: Consent to Collection and Use of Data.

2. Consent to Collection and Use of Data.

EA knows that you care how information about you is collected, used and
shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly.
Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and EA
would never sell your personally identifiable information to anyone, nor would it
ever use spyware or install spyware on users' machines. We and agents acting
on our behalf do not share information that personally identifies you without your
consent, except in rare instances where disclosure is required by law or to
enforce EA's legal rights.

In addition to information that you give EA directly, EA collects non-
personally identifiable (or anonymous) information for purposes of improving our
products and services, providing services to you, facilitating the provision of
software updates, dynamically served content and product support as well as
communicating with you. The non-personally identifiable information that EA
collects includes technical and related information that identifies your computer
(including the Internet Protocol Address) and operating system, as well as
information about your Application usage (including but not limited to successful
installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware.
As noted above, this information is gathered periodically for purposes such as
improving our products and services, troubleshooting bugs, and otherwise
enhancing your user experience.

This and all other data provided to EA and/or collected by EA in
connection with your installation and use of this Application is collected, used,
stored and transmitted in accordance with EA's Privacy Policy located at
www.ea.com. To the extent that anything in this section conflicts or is
inconsistent with the terms of EA's Privacy Policy, the terms of the Privacy Policy
shall control.

EA's Privacy policy [http://www.ea.com/privacy-policy]

Spoiler: What Is Personal Information And When Does EA Collect It?

III. What Is Personal Information And When Does EA Collect It?

EA collects both personal and non-personal consumer information. Personal information collected by EA is discussed below in this section. Non-personal information is discussed below in Section IV.

Personal information is information that identifies you and that can be used alone, to contact you on-line or off-line. EA may collect personal information from our online visitors during:

● Contest registration and prize acceptance;
● Warranty registration and requests;
● Customer support and/or technical service requests;
● Player match up and other head-to-head online competitions;
● Registration for games and/or special game-specific events;
● Newsletter subscriptions, referral services, and other marketing surveys and email campaigns;
● Registration for EA/Origin and/or other service accounts;
● Creation of a personal profile;
● Product, service and/or subscription orders;
● Service requests from third party service providers on our site;
● Access to our products and/or services on social networks or other third party services; and
● Otherwise through use of our software, mobile or online services where personal information is required for use and/or participation.

Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, email address, phone number, home address, birth date, mobile phone number and credit card information. Visitors to EA Mobile may be asked to provide the name of their mobile service carrier, model of their mobile phone and a valid mobile number so that we may provide purchase instructions directly to their mobile phone. In that context, your mobile number will only be used to send you a text message with a link to download your game and will not be retained for any other purpose. Prize winners may be required to provide their Social Security or other identification number for tax purposes, and will be used only for prize fulfillment.

Spoiler: What Is Non-Personal Information and When Does EA Collect It?

IV. What Is Non-Personal Information and When Does EA Collect It?

Non-personal information, alone, cannot be used to identify or contact you. EA collects non-personal information about your use of our online and mobile products and services both on our website and in the course of game play and software usage (on PC, mobile and game system platforms).

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information contact the Privacy Policy Administrator in your country listed on our site at privacyadmin.ea.com, or if your country is not listed, by contacting the Privacy Policy Administrator in the United States. There may be instances where we are legally required to retain your information.

A. What Types of Non-Personal Information Does EA Collect?

When you use EA online and mobile products and services or you play our games on your PC or game system, we may collect certain non-personally identifiable information for purposes including improving our products and services, troubleshooting bugs, providing services to you, facilitating the provision of software updates, dynamically served content and product support as well as communicating with you. The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance. We may also receive either non-personal or public information from third parties in connection with market and demographic studies and/or other data that we use to supplement personal information provided directly by you.

B. How Does EA Collect Non-Personal Information?

EA collects non-personal information along with personal information when you actively provide it in the context of various online and mobile activities including online and mobile purchases, game registration and marketing surveys, for instance. In addition, we and other third parties use cookies and other technologies to passively collect non-personal demographic information, personalize your experience on our sites and monitor advertisements and other activities as described below. We may also derive from the information collected other facts, such as determining the applicable tax rate based on your IP address.

1. Cookies

Cookies are small files applied to your Internet browser to track movements within websites. We may link cookie information to personal information. Cookies link to information regarding what items you have selected for purchase at our store, pages you have viewed, or games you have played. This information is used to keep track of your shopping cart and make sure you don't see the same ad repeatedly, for example. Also, we use cookies to deliver content specific to your interest and to monitor website or game usage. We and third parties collect information on what games are played, how much time is spent playing the games and which ads or links are clicked. Some of our sites use an outside ad company to display ads. These ads contain cookies. Cookies received with banner ads are applied by our ad companies, and EA does not have access to this information. Most browsers are automatically set to accept cookies whenever you visit a website. You can disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent. However some areas of our sites will not function properly if you do so. You can set your web browser to warn you about attempts to place cookies on your computer, or limit the type of cookies you allow. For more information concerning how to disable your cookies, please visit help.ea.com, support.popcap.com (for PopCap products) or swtor.com/support (for Star Wars?: The Old Republic).

We and other third parties may also use flash cookies, also known as ?local shared objects,? on our sites that employ Flash technology. Flash cookies are small files similar to browser cookies and are used to remember the site?s settings to personalize the look and feel of the site. Like normal cookies, Flash cookies are represented as small files on your computer. One method of preventing Flash cookies from being placed is to adjust your preferences in the Macromedia Website Privacy Settings Panel at www.macromedia.com.

If you disable cookies, you may lose some of the features and functionality of playing our games, as cookies are necessary to track and enhance your game activities. Please note that companies delivering advertisements in our games or on our websites may also use cookies or other technologies, and those practices are subject to their own policies.

Please note that this privacy policy covers the use of cookies by EA only and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

2. Clear GIFs And Tracking Pixels

Clear GIFs (a.k.a. web bugs, beacons or tags) are small graphic images placed on a web page, web-based document, or in an email message. Clear GIFs are invisible to the user because they are typically very small (only 1-by-1 pixel) and the same color as the background of the web page, document or email message. We do not use clear GIFs to collect personal information about you. However, we may use clear GIFs to capture statistical usage information for our web pages, features or other elements on a web page. We correlate this information to a user to personalize user experience and for statistical analysis of user experiences on our web pages.

We and third parties may also use tracking pixels, which allow us to advertise more efficiently by excluding our current users from certain promotional messages or identifying the source of a new installation.

3. Internet Log Files

EA and other third parties also may maintain log files which contain IP addresses. An IP address is a numeric address that may be assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider. In general, we use log files to monitor traffic on our websites, to troubleshoot technical problems and authenticate users' entitlements to our products. In the event of user abuse of our websites, however, we may block certain IP addresses or game system IDs provided by our licensed hardware manufacturers. If available, IP addresses and game system IDs may be used to personally identify you in order to enforce our Terms of Service.

4. Analytic Metrics Tools and Other Technologies

EA also uses its own proprietary analytic metrics tool and other third party analytics technologies to collect non-personal information when you use our online products and services and/or play our games on your PC, game system and/or mobile device. These tools and technologies use server log files, web beacons, cookies, tracking pixels and other technologies to collect and analyze certain types of information, including cookies, IP addresses (including for purposes of determining your approximate geographic location), mobile or other hardware device ID or other device identifiers, browser types, browser language, information passed from your browser (if any), referring and exit pages, and URLs, platform type, the number of clicks, information about your media, peripheral hardware, software and/or applications installed on your machine and/or device, domain names and types, landing pages, pages viewed and the order of those pages, the date and amount of time spent on particular pages, other Internet and website usage information, game state and the date and time of activity on our websites or games, information about how your game is used, including game metrics and statistics, feature usage and purchase history, as well as unique hardware identifiers such as MAC Address, mobile unique device ID (if applicable) and other similar information.

The third party analytics companies who collect information on our sites and in the context of our online and mobile products and/or services may combine the information collected with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online or mobile products and services relating to your activities across their network of websites as well as online and/or mobile products and services. Many of these companies collect and use information under their own privacy policies.

Some EA websites and services use Google Analytics, a web analytic service offered by Google Inc. (?Google?). Google Analytics uses ?Cookies?, text files that are stored on your PC and that enables the analysis of your usage of this website. The information about your usage of websites, collected through these cookies, will be transmitted to and stored on Google server based in the US. On behalf of EA, Google will use this information in order to evaluate your usage of this websites, to make reports on website activities and/or to provide the website operator with other services related to this websites. Your IP-address collected by Google Analytics will not be matched up with other data of Google. You may prevent the installation of cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Please note that if you disable cookies, it is possible that you may not use all functionalities of EA?s websites. You may also prevent the cookies from collecting and storing your information by downloading and installing the following browser-plugin under the following link http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

A non-exclusive list of the other analytics companies that operate their own technologies on our sites and online and/or mobile products and/or services can be found at privacyappendix.ea.com.

5. Third Party Ad Serving Technology

EA?s websites, online or mobile products or services may employ third party ad serving technologies that use cookies, clear GIFs, web beacons, tracking pixels or other technologies to collect information as a result of ad serving through our products or services as well as to help track. Some third-party dynamic in-game advertisement serving technology enable advertising to be temporarily uploaded into your web browser or mobile device and replaced while you are online. We or third parties operating the advertisement serving technology may use demographic information such as age and gender as well as information logged from your hardware or device to ensure that appropriate advertising is presented within the site, online or mobile product or service and to calculate or control the number of unique and repeat views of a given ad, and/or deliver ads that relate to your interests and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns. We or third parties may log data for this purpose including IP address (including for purposes of determining your approximate geographic location), unique device I.D., information about your software, applications and hardware, browser information (and/or information passed via your browser), hardware, machine or device make and model, advertisement(s) served, in game location, length of time an advertisement was visible, other Internet and website usage information, web pages and mobile internet sites which have been viewed by you (as well as date and time), domain type, size of the advertisement, advertisement response (if any), and angle of view. The foregoing data may be used and disclosed per this policy and the privacy policy of the company providing the ad serving technology and to other third parties in a form that does not personally identify you.

The advertising companies who deliver ads for us may combine the information collected or obtained from EA with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online or mobile products and services relating to your web browser's activities across their network of websites. Many of these companies collect and use information under their own privacy policies.

A non-exclusive list of ad serving companies that operate their own networks on our sites and online and/or mobile products and/or services can be found at privacyappendix.ea.com.

For more information about the practices of other large ad serving companies that may collect information based on your interaction with ads on this site and others, or to "opt out" of targeted advertising delivered by National Advertising Initiative (NAI) member ad networks, you should visit www.networkadvertising.org.

These ad serving technologies are integrated into our sites, online or mobile products and services; if you do not want to use this technology, do not play.

6. Anti-Cheat and Fraud Prevention Technologies

EA strives to provide a safe and fair gaming environment to all players of its games. To prevent fraudulent activities and behaviors that may negatively affect the experiences of a player, EA is authorized to use "anti-cheating" software, or applications for the prevention of fraud for our internet presence, during the use of our online products and/or services (including online games), and mobile platforms.

At login to EA online products and/or services, during the setup of an EA/Origin account, and/or at the point of sale, EA may collect data about your device in order to create a hash of machine components. Information collected for this purpose shall not be stored in retrievable form. EA uses the collected information for the prevention of fraud, and for authentication purposes. EA may consolidate the machine hash created for this purpose with your EA/Origin account; data consolidated this way will not be shared with any other third party, and will be used exclusively for security and authentication purposes by EA.

Spoiler: What Happens To The Information EA Collects?

VI. What Happens To The Information EA Collects?

A. How EA Uses Your Information

EA uses your information to fulfill your specific requests, purchase orders and to send you purchase confirmation and other account-related information. In addition, the personal information you provide will allow us to send you messages about things including new products, features, enhancements, special offers, upgrade opportunities, contests and events of interest. You may also later opt out of certain of these communications.

Otherwise, EA uses personal and non-personal information, both individually and combined together, to better enhance your user experience, improve our products and services, understand the behavior and preferences of our customers, to troubleshoot technical problems, to serve static and dynamic advertising, for authentication purposes, to enforce our Terms of Service, to ensure proper functioning of our products and services as well as to help improve them. In addition, we combine non-personal information with personal information, such as an email address, for purposes including providing excellent customer service, administering loyalty programs, and tailoring our communications, offerings, web pages and/or game play experience to you.

By use of friend finder tools such as Facebook, Game Center or other third party services in our online and mobile products and services, you acknowledge that use of these friend finder tools will help you find your contacts and will also allow your contacts to associate your EA Account, also known as an Origin Account, (and related gaming entitlements, including games played on PC, mobile and console platforms) with your social networking profile and/or email address. Your resulting friends? list, which may be accessible across EA social platforms as available, will be subject to this privacy policy. Note that the friends that you choose to include on any EA or Origin friends? list may be able to find and/or identify you in the context of different EA products and services and see the profiles you have established. Those friends may also be able to see the gamertags that you use across EA's suite of products and services. Choose your friends carefully.

If you choose to use our referral service to "Tell a Friend" about an EA product or site, we will ask you for your friend?s name and email address. We will send your friend an email on your behalf inviting him or her to visit the site or check out our product. EA stores your friend's name and email for a short period for the sole purpose of sending this email and for redundancy checking, to be sure that your friend does not receive multiple copies of the same email message. We do not keep or use this information for any other purpose.

Your participation in tournaments or other online game events is also conditional upon our collection, use, storage, transmission and public display of statistical data (such as your scores, rankings and achievements) generated through your participation.

B. Will EA Share My Information With Third Parties?

EA will never share your personally identifiable information with third parties without your consent. We may, however, share non-personally identifiable, aggregated and/or public information with third parties. There may be circumstances where you may share information on your own. Please see section XI for more details about your rights to information you share publicly on EA and other third party sites and forums. You may also opt in to allow EA to share your personal information with companies and organizations that provide products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. To opt out of further communications from a marketing partner or sponsor with whom your information has been shared, please contact that partner or sponsor directly.

EA does not disclose any personal information about children under 18 years of age who have registered on any of our websites to third parties, or share or disclose personal information other than as set forth in this policy, provided however, that in the event of a merger, acquisition, or the unlikely event of bankruptcy, management of EA customer information may be transferred to its successor or assign regardless of age.

From time to time, EA employs third party contractors to collect personal information on our behalf to provide email delivery, product, prize or promotional fulfillment, contest administration, credit card processing, shipping or other services on our sites. When requesting these services, you may be asked to supply your name, mailing address, telephone number and email address to our contractors. We ask some third party contractors, such as credit agencies, data analytics or market research firms, to supplement personal information that you provide to us for our own marketing and demographic studies, so that we can consistently improve our sites and related advertising to better meet our visitors' needs and preferences. To enrich our understanding of individual customers, we tie this information to the personal information you provide to us.

When our third party agents or service providers collect and/or have access any information other than non-personal, anonymous and/or aggregated data, EA requires that they use data consistently with our stated privacy policies and protect the confidentiality of personal information they collect or have access to in the course of their engagement by EA. These third parties are prohibited from using your personal information for any other purpose without your specific consent.

You will be notified before your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party.

We may also access and disclose personal information, including personal communications, in connection with report abuse functions in our products and services, to enforce legal rights and comply with the law, or to comply with an order from a government entity or other competent authority, or when we have reason to believe that a disclosure is necessary to address potential or actual injury or interference with our rights, property, operations, users or others who may be harmed or may suffer loss or damage, or when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, combat fraud and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on EA. Note that certain publically available information you post and communicate on our and third party sites and services is public information for which you have no expectation of privacy. See Section XI for more details.

I'm sick of it. From now on, nobody has an excuse for not backing up their claims with quotes. Not that you had before, but now you have easy access to links and relevant info.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Snip

Couldn't even bother to quote me. For shame.

What do I need to quote you for?

 

[ph0b0s123]

Steam - then asks you if you are OK for this data to be given to Valve.

Vs

Origin - just takes it.

It's that simple.

No it isn't

Origin asks you as well, the bottom of the EULA where you have the agree to box that you tick. Well that's Origin asking if you agree to let them collect data and send it back to EA. The difference is what the program does when you do not agree. With Steam service continues as normal with Origin you just can't install it.

Ok, you can think of it that way if you like. Does not change the core of my point, that the people saying that Steam is just as bad as Origin for pirvacy invasion, are wrong....

 

[Something Amyss]

They are not allowed to sell the information, cheak their eula.

Further, Steam still takes data regardless.

Every time someone comes up with this whole "EA is worse than Valve" thing, someone posts it, so I'll just sit back and wait.

But people generally do what they can to justify the use of a service that does the same thing as EA's Origin because ponies.

 

[vrbtny]

Oh not this thread again.

Honestly no-one gives a shit anymore.

I feel like we've been here before, have we been here before?

Ahem :

OT : I ain't getting Mass Effect 3 as previously stated, mainly because of Origin. I didn't by BF3 because of Origin, and I ain't changing my ways now.

 

[Something Amyss]

Ahem :

Perfect timing, given the last post ended:

But people generally do what they can to justidy (sic) the use of a service that does the same thing as EA's Origin because ponies.

EDIT: I'm not buying Mass Effect 3, because I had quality issues with ME2. Origin really is a non-issue for me, though I'd just as soon have only one game client running on my computer.

 

[ph0b0s123]

They are not allowed to sell the information, cheak their eula.

Further, Steam still takes data regardless.

Every time someone comes up with this whole "EA is worse than Valve" thing, someone posts it, so I'll just sit back and wait.

But people generally do what they can to justify the use of a service that does the same thing as EA's Origin because ponies.

"Further, Steam still takes data regardless."

Care to backup that statement, otherwise it is not true. Valve's Software and hardware sureveys are OPTIONAL.

 

[ph0b0s123]

At this point the people who still hate Origin over the stuff that was fixed long ago will never stop hating on it despite all the facts to the contrary. It's not even worth it to try and to talk reasonably and logically with them anymore.

They've stated what they're looking at, why they're taking it, and what they're going to do with it. All completely legit reasons.

The only attack that's even plausible I've seen to this is just basically "THEY'RE LYING!" and there's no way to prove or disprove it when the hate on EA is that strong.

Actually no, the thing I have a problem with has not been fixed. I would happly use Origin if this one difference I described when posting this topics was fixed. I have no problem with EA or Origin apart from this one issue.

Your generalisation of people who have a problem with Origin in my case, is wrong....

 

[CrazyMedic]

Lets say EA takes your hardware specs. Then EA uses this information to better refine and update games. Better games right? Isnt that the point?

Worst case scenario is that EA sells this information. What, exactly, is -anyone- going to do with this information? Like seriously.

Someone, please, tell me what the WORST CASE SCENARIO could possibly be if EA found out my Hardware and Software data?

now it is just hardware specs soon they are going to be poking around and see you downloaded some piece of EA abandoneware it becomes "oh you downloaded a cracked version of a game from the 80s no orgin for you" so now there is no big worst case now there might be soon.

 

[TheBritishAreComing]

This Origin statement is wrong. You gave them the OK to take your data on the Terms and Services contract. Complain all you want, you gave them the OK to root around your computer.

 

[DoPo]

-snip-

And you proved me wrong. Fair enough. In that case you have the full right to complain.

I just thought you were one of the people that go "Origin is bad because it steals your info" while making no attempt to hide the info in the first place.

If you have the principles, you can and should stick to them. Most of the others complain for the sake of complaining.

P.S. You might also check out HTTPS Everywhere [https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere] for some more security online. There is also [EDITED] but I haven't tried it out yet.

EDIT: OK, the second one could be used as an adblocker, so I'd rather not risk breaking the forum rules.

 

[Something Amyss]

Valve's Software and hardware sureveys are OPTIONAL.

That's what's claimed every time. Inevitably, someone posts proof otherwise. You know, what I said I'd just wait to see someone else post.

Ah well, might as well be me.

From Steam's Privacy Policy:

Collection and Use of Information
By using Valve's online sites and products, users agree that Valve may collect aggregate information, individual information, and personally identifiable information, as defined below.

Oh snap! That actually looks very similar to EA's policy and is not optional, with the exception of seect third party participation!

 

[Freechoice]

I think some people will just defend EA for the sake of disagreeing with the OP. Why would anyone assume EA has your best interests at heart given their track record?

EA has, and this is just off the top of my head:
-Secured the exclusive rights to produce football video games with NFL players in them
-Closed Westwood Studios, makers of the Command and Conquer series in addition to many other studios.
-Had marketing programs that were overtly offensive to specific groups

And what's on Wiki?
-Attempted hostile takeover of Take-Two, the publishing group behind Rockstar
-Supposed hostile takeover of Ubisoft (although this is not well substantiated)
-Previous DRM debacles surrounding Spore and a CnC game
-Worker mistreatment that brought about lawsuits that found in favor of the plaintiffs.


And the fact that they did change their EULA should not score them points. As far as I know, Valve never pulled this shit with Steam. I'm also pretty sure Valve never locked out someone's game library over a simple opinion.

 

[LordFisheh]

Honestly, is it really so important? I believe in privacy, but still. And Origin does ask you - that's the bit where you accept the agreement without reading it.

In the end, you are meaningless. I am meaningless. EA doesn't care what's on either of our hard drives. How ever gratifying it is to think that The Man is spying on you specifically, the fact is that he doesn't even care that any of us exist, let alone want to snoop around our pirated mp3s.

 

[Dys]

Steam - then asks you if you are OK for this data to be given to Valve.

I know right, and it's barely even misleading as to whether or not it trolls through your registry analysing irrelevent information! Nothing from the name "hardware survey" to the sneaky change of fine print is in any way unethical, not at all like those dogs at EA with their transparent and obvious spying scheme. Seriously, I fucking hate it when people announce they are spying on me, I just wish they'd do it and shutup.

 

[Miroku2235]

Personally I think that if someone goes through all the effort to run No-scripts, ad-blocks, javablocks, cookie untrackers, etc etc...then they do have something to hide, even if they claim the opposite. However that is just my opinion so take with a grain of salt.

On the Origin/Steam debate I think it has been blown way out of proportion. I use both. Steam for the good sales and whatnot, and Origin for the EA titles that I want to play, Old Republic and ME3 in particular. I will be the first to admit I used to be in the "Zomg Origin is spying on people!!1!" camp, but after a bit of research and taking the piss I came to the conclusion that it was nowhere near the catastrophe that people were making it out to be.

Origin is looking at my hardware/software specs for my PC? Big whoop, benchmark sites do that when I go to see if my PC can run the newest games smoothly. I mean honestly, what could they do? "This man is only running a dual-core processor! RELEASE THE HOUNDS!"

Now I'm all for people sticking to their guns and principle and such...but jeez...there are times you gotta admit that maybe you're being a bit too paranoid and/or sensitive and need to get over it.

 

[TheScottishFella]

Lets say EA takes your hardware specs. Then EA uses this information to better refine and update games. Better games right? Isnt that the point?

Worst case scenario is that EA sells this information. What, exactly, is -anyone- going to do with this information? Like seriously.

Someone, please, tell me what the WORST CASE SCENARIO could possibly be if EA found out my Hardware and Software data?

The biggest concern was actually coming from how they worded it. Valve looks at your hardware. EA does the same but takes it a step further and monitors the activity you do on your computer, such as what sites you go to. Meaning you have no privacy.

-snip-

I know right, and it's barely even misleading as to whether or not it trolls through your registry analysing irrelevent information! Nothing from the name "hardware survey" to the sneaky change of fine print is in any way unethical, not at all like those dogs at EA with their transparent and obvious spying scheme. Seriously, I fucking hate it when people announce they are spying on me, I just wish they'd do it and shutup.

Your viewpoint worries me somewhat. I think the OP may have messed that bit up a little but the fact you are okay with people spying on you?

 

[michael87cn]

Lets say EA takes your hardware specs. Then EA uses this information to better refine and update games. Better games right? Isnt that the point?

Worst case scenario is that EA sells this information. What, exactly, is -anyone- going to do with this information? Like seriously.

Someone, please, tell me what the WORST CASE SCENARIO could possibly be if EA found out my Hardware and Software data?

You wouldn't call the cops if someone was snooping around in your yard?

Do you really think that a corporation deserves ANY of your information just so that you can play a video game? You're giving a LOT of your freedom away for something really stupid.

Just because corporations aren't doing bad things - or even publicly - doing bad things with information STOLEN from users, doesn't mean they never will. Keep in mind always that the way this data is obtained is designed to be in secret and without your knowing. Agreements are specifically designed so that a layman can't understand them and will be basically brainwashed into skipping every one they come across and 'trusting' it is fair.

it doesn't mean a group of hackers can't steal that information and use it maliciously.

It doesn't mean that a government or rogue agency can't access that information and use it.

identity theft is a problem, and laying down on the ground and giving thousands if not millions of people around the world very private and personal information about yourself so that you can play a space marine that has romantic relationships with female aliens is ridiculous. The only thing these companies deserve is your money if you want to purchase their game. They have no right to automatically obtain any information about you. If they want it, they are free to ask for it in an optional survey.

Stand up for yourself - this is how companies take control - slowly and painlessly, before you know it they control every aspect of our lives.

Gone a bit far have I? Maybe, but human beings are terrible things.