Just wondering, which are the "evil" gaming companies?

[maxmanrules]

- A company making "spyware"? They want to make money (and it's not spyware if for any other reason, Spyware is something you don't voluntarily put on your computer)

Wrong. Spyware is software that monitors what is happening on a computer without users knowledge. I believe that Origin counts as spyware because they (Electronic Arseholes) never told anyone that Origin does anything spyware-like. The only reason you would know it is spyware would be if you frequented sites like The Escapist or if you did some research before installing Origin, which most people wouldn't because it is a "legit" company and it installs on their computer with whatever game.
tl;dr EA didn't say it was spyware, it was discovered by individuals and a n00b ain't gonna know about it.

Now, I don't PC game so I could be incorrect on this but is this not the same data that companies like Valve collect with their all-mighty Steam program? I get that you might not TRUST EA with this data and are willing to trust Valve with it (the same reason I won't install Zynga games on my phone) but that doesn't make them evil; it makes them a standard in the gaming world. They want to know what your system runs to make sure that the games will work properly.

Not quite. Steam does collect some info, (which is one reason I don't particularly like steam either) But EA scans everything it can get it's hands on. It scans the entire contents of the application data folder for instance. And if you read Steams and EA's usage terms, EA's lets them use said information for whatever they want and that all that info belongs to them etc etc. Steam's is a little better, merely saying some stuff about third party advertisers using said data for adds (which, while better, is still bad)