Take this Origin!

[Danny Ocean]

Allow me to repeat myself:

Oh for the love of christ.

[HEADING=1]READ THIS! THE EULA CHANGED MONTHS AGO![/HEADING]
[sup]Back in August, in fact. Pay attention.[/sup]

Click here. [http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/battlefield-3/news/6331203/ea-changes-origin-eula]

According to the current agreement, "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."

While the wording on collecting information about a user's computer, operating system, software, and software usage remains mostly intact, another clause from the agreement no longer appears. That now-omitted line originally stated, "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." In fact, the new EULA makes no mention of marketing at all.

The third section in the EULA, "Application communications and conduct/privacy settings," has also changed considerably. It no longer includes wording that "EA reserves the right to monitor communications on the Application and disclose any information EA deems necessary," nor does it specify that if users don't agree to EA's collection, they shouldn't install the application.

THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM ANY MORE.

This Eula is now no more invasive or threatening than Steam's, or any other programs'.

 

[BoTTeNBReKeR]

And who actually cares that EA collects certain data? It's most likely stuff like what kind of websites you visit or what kind of games you like to play. It's not like they're gonna be reading your emails or browsing through your chatlogs or other personal things.

People blow this entire thing out of proportion. Doesn't Steam and a dozen other companies do the exact same thing?

 

[Denariax]

There needs to be some kind of forum search function that, when you make a topic, it searches for other topic titles that are similar and automatically links you to them.

Because people are not really keen on reading, might as well make it easier.

 

[projectX42]

not only is this out of date your argument is invalid and you school seams to be very poor at teaching IT that is all

 

[HentMas]

You have to click the 'I Agree' box for the EULA when you start using Origin.

Take that random internet guy!

You people make it sound like they are going to steal your bank passwords. The sky is falling chicken little!

yes, this is exactly what i thought, if i remember correctly the oh so divine STEAM does exactly the same thing and people dont complain or just a little bit, if people dont believe me, check their track record on their page about PC vs MAC and other system requirements, they can tell which is the most used processor, which is the most used graphics card and even which other programs are running at the same time than steam, and people dont mind

hilarious in my opinion...

 

[Something Amyss]

EA are not stupid they probably have a legal department with more staff than the population of the world's smallest country, but as others have said, I think after the uproar over them stating what information they wanted, they've changed their privacy statement a little, though I'm not sure.

To be fair, though, just because they have a big legal team doesn't mean it will hold up in court. Until recently, it wouldn't have. Especially since any use of the service was an opt-in, even in some dubious scenarios. Now, I'm not so sure.

And who actually cares that EA collects certain data? It's most likely stuff like what kind of websites you visit or what kind of games you like to play. It's not like they're gonna be reading your emails or browsing through your chatlogs or other personal things.

People blow this entire thing out of proportion. Doesn't Steam and a dozen other companies do the exact same thing?

Actually, I love the people who scream about "privacy" and then post their information constantly on Twitter and Facebook the most. They're a hoot.

Also, it's okay when Steam does this. Steam is good. Steam is pure. EA are evil!

/cultistdrone

 

[Athinira]

Yes, it is free and presented to you first, but it, and most other EULA's, are still void in Europe because they're horribly one-sided. In the EU really one-sided contracts aren't considered legally binding.

Not quite.

I'm European as well (danish), and by Danish law, for example, even one-sided contracts still apply. There might be paragraphs in the contact which is voided by the law, but that under no circumstances voids the entire contract. One sided or not, you still agreed to it.

If you truly believe that EULA's don't apply in the EU, then I'd suggest you try to fight it out in court, see how it goes. My guess is that you'll be very surprised )

Your First assertion is correct the colelction of storing of data most likely is legal as they do indeed ask.

Your second that any breach of it or enforcing the deletion of it, is difficult because EA is a US company is however false. For a start there are UK offices, and they are registerd for VAT, meaning the Goverment has a number of ways of applying fines or product bans. To put this in context Microsoft is a US company, but at various times the EU and individual member states have levied massive fines and sales bans on it's products.

The data protection act and other UK laws may have some application in limiting the data that EA can take using the T&C on Origin, but you have to find evidence for them actually taking data which the act prohibits them from having.

Except that it doesn't. And you are wrong (or might be wrong).

The Microsoft (and by extension also Intel) cases are antitrust-cases, in which the offending act was committed inside the EU directly by the subsidiaries. That allows the EU to punish them for their business acts on EU ground.

Origin, however, can at it's heart be considered an American service (depending on how EA constructed it). Even while it's true that EA has European subsidiaries, in most cases if a service is being rendered by the parent company, which often means they can't legally punish the parent company through their subsidiaries as long as the subsidiaries doesn't directly involve themself with the overall operation of the service (even if they still support the service indirectly, for example by providing data mirrors). This is especially true if the personal data is kept in America, and not on any European mirrors. Remember that this is the internet, and by digital regulations, signing in to Origin can be considered moving "digitally" on to American Soil (unless, like i said, EA has moved the service too far to European soil).

As i said, i MIGHT be wrong, for the reasons that there are unknowns to us even in this case. We don't know how EA stores the data they may or may not collect, but even though EA has renounced some of the more violating parts of the Origin EULA, it's definitely certain that they could still do it and get away with it.