EA's 'Invasion of Privacy' Policy 98
Justus writes "Gamers with Jobs has posted an article covering EA's privacy policy for Xbox Live users. In a nutshell, by using an EA game over Xbox Live, you are automatically creating an 'EA Online' account and granting Electronic Arts the ability to collect your name, address, and credit card information, as well as a variety of demographic information about how you use their products. Not only that, they explicitly say that they may tie these demographics to your personal information — no anonymous aggregation here! When Gamers with Jobs asked EA and Microsoft about these issues, they were met with stony silence, a fact they attribute to the pending release of the new Madden game next week. Without an official comment from the companies involved, it certainly looks like EA has the most invasive privacy policy they could come up with."
It's stories like this one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Vote with your wallet - do _not_ buy products that fuck with your inalienable rights so badly.
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You make a good point about voting with a wallet. What a shame you dressed it up in so much hyperbole that an average punter would probably classify you as a whacko and ignore you.
How can it be an "inalienable right" if it's being taken away from you?
And in what way is this an assault on our "freedom"? Privacy, sure, but are they locking you up if you don't play enough or something?
IMHO, if you have a good point to make, you can generally make it much more effectively by writing about it in a calm and
Re:It's stories like this one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Inalienable does not mean it can't be taken away from you, it means it is inherent; an inalienable right is a right which is absolute, not one which is granted. I could shoot you in the face with a gun, for example, removing your inalienable right to life. It's quite a fluffy concept, one that has kept philosophers happy for quite a while. As always Wikipedia has more coverage [wikipedia.org].
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Well, my dictionaries don't agree with the wording of your definition, but that's somewhat beside the point. Even using your definitions, how can an inalienable right possibly be removed by a corporation?
If you want to be philosophical about it, then the only rights you truly have are those which are prepared to die defending, because ultimately anything else can be taken from you. We therefore invent modifiers like "legal" (those rights the law says you should have) and "moral" (those rights that someone
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Re:It's stories like this one... (Score:4, Funny)
I could shoot you in the face with a gun, for example, removing your inalienable right to life.
You think you can take ALL of us Mr. Vice President?
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If it was taken away, other companies would be able to ask you for the same info EA is getting and get! (FROM YOU) since you'd have lost the right to protect that information(which is nonsensical). As for inalienable, in this particular case, IANAL but I believe it stands that you can not be made to lose it. An alienable right, would be freedom of movement, if you commit a serious enough crime, your right can be alienated from you(as in taken away). That doesn't
Re:It's stories like this one... (Score:4, Funny)
Deep breath...valium...exhale...
Yeah, vote with your wallet but don't act like it's the end of the world.
Re:It's stories like this one... (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, slashdot has so many readers, we ought to form a PAC for
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How about Night of the Living Dead? [archive.org] I downloaded that legally last year before Halloween. Try it out some time.
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I did mean that as a rhetorical question, but touché. And I think I might, it's a classic.
Most films that anybody can name are still in copyright, and the very few public domain films we've ever heard of are in the public domain because they were released prior to the '70s, before the current © terms went into effect (thanks for reminding me we still have a few more works expiring
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1) The name makes me think it's a bunch of people who want to eliminate IP rights, i.e., want to pirate movies, music, software, etc., and I don't think too many people would listen (whether or not that's what the Pirate Party wants) because of the name. I do think limited IP rights help society, but I'm concerned when the current "limited" terms mean that any members of society alive when the protection started will be dead long before said period expires.
And 2) Neve
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Re:It's stories like this one... (Score:4, Informative)
If everyone that read this actually wrote a letter to congress (write to your rep, not just to congress as a whole) seeking stronger privacy laws, with a simple but well framed arguement why it's important to us, you would see real change. But we've got to make it an issue, because they are receiving letters every day about the war(s), about immigration, about the minimum wage increase. If you don't let them know it's important to you, even a strong advocate of privacy will have a hard time moving legislation through the commitees and floor. A PAC might buy us a representative or two in Congress, but it won't be enough to get people looking at the importance of the issue.
If you don't know how to get ahold of your rep, or for lack of political participation can't figure out who your rep is, visit here : www.congress.org
But be careful! I've read through their privacy policy, and it, much like EA's, is pretty invasive, including the option to sell your personal information. Still, you can use their site to figure out who you want to contact, and take matters to your own hands from there.
Best wishes
Mike
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And get back a form letter. Congress is just not concerned about what citizens have to say unless it's a hot topic, but you're right. That's the first step, so I'll do so.
I s
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I have a friend that is an elected official. I forget what the title is exactly, but I think he supervises the collection of
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I also got added to a bunch of rolex and viagra spam lists which, I am sure , was just a coincidence... ~_^
Re:It's stories like this one... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's insightful to remember the Scott McNealy [wikiquote.org] quote: "You have zero privacy. Get over it."
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I'm still waiting for crackers to post his credit card information and explicit photos of his family on zeroprivacygetoverit.com. I'm guessing his lawyers would take a different view at that point.
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Not only that the more they collect the more they'll sell to others. The least they could do is give you a piece of the total when they sell the information they have co
Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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At least with sony, you could complain and fight for legislation to kill their root kit, with microsoft they don't even ask you to bend over, you buying it pre-installed and they are selling access to it and to you, to all comers.
A gap certainly cr
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
As always, the best way to protect yourself is to lie through your teeth when asked for personal information and never, ever be even vaguely consistent across different requests. For instance, if you pretended to be an Albanian nun to get a NYT login, pretend to be a Portuguese sausage-maker with hobbies of sword-fighting and watch repair to get an IMDB login -- but don't mention anything ecclesiastical or Albanian.
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For the average user... there is no privacy, welcome to the 21st century!
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I disagree - boycotts are very good solutions, it's just that too many Americans are too fat and lazy to do anything about it. They want their video games, their McFood, all of their convenience, and all of that means so much more than some very fundamental issues that involve some pretty serious stuff. What's worse, is that they look to big daddy government to solve their problems once everything is hopelessly out of hand. That will NEVER work, since the elected
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EA's policies now public... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:EA's policies now public... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure you want to quit?
Yes
I am sorry, you have not yet completed 18 hour units of playtime, you must continue playing for another 16 hours to enable the Quit command.
Should be fully expaned on the frontpage (Score:5, Insightful)
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Its just another advert for Madden.
Looking forward to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your data is worth money. Marketers are willing to buy it. Hence, companies will be willing and eager to sell it. They don't care. They're private companies, beholden to no one except their shareholders.
If you would like to give your explicit approval to this buy buying such a game, or tacit approval by buying any other EA game, then do so. That is your right. Just don't complain when your playing habits are vomited all over the net like so many AOL search results.
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NO PRIVACY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED (Score:3, Interesting)
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Most invasive? (Score:2, Informative)
Here is the privacy policy from the Safeway Club Card [safeway.com]:
Re:Most invasive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Most invasive? (Score:4, Informative)
Tesco gives you 1p in the £1 of all you spend with them for the data which they are taking. Some people would think that this isn't worth it, so you can just not have one and still use their products and buy from them.
It seems with EA you have to do this or not use a product which you have paid for, which is a bit bad
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You can really see this with soda since it's usually discounted. We saw prices for 6-packs of 24 fl oz soda running at $2.00 in December (2001?). On January 1st several stores rolled out their cards and the same product cost _$5.00_. But if you signed up for their card you could get the soda for just $3.00.
They called it a 40% savings. I call it a 50% increase.
The "regular" prices have gotten a more realistic,
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It wouldn't surprise me if they start doing the same with credit card purchases; getting access to everything you bought, instead of just the bottom line. MasterCard and Visa have to make more money than just the 19% they collect on people that don't pay
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Morrisons supermarkets don't have a loyalty card scheme. They do have savings stamp machines: you buy one pound stamps and stick them on a card. At certain points there are pre-printed "extra stamps", which are only valid if all the preceding positions are occupied with real stamps; this is the bonus you get for using savings stamps. Meanwhile, Morrisons have your money in
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Well, Safeway UK were taken over by Morrisons, anyway...
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Safeway and Kroger has been *******, but I picked up a Safeway card because I was there with my girlfriend and reminded her that I had "lost" my card. They gave me a card and application to fill out so I would continue to get my bennies. Gosh, I seem to have misplaced that form!
The bottom line is that you can get them without providing personal information, but you have to be persistent. It also goes without saying that they're ca
Taking A Big Risk (Score:2)
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More people need to write letters to the company officers telling them explicitly that they cannot use your personal (or any collected) information outside of their direct company, including any affiliated companies. In other words, write them letters telling them that they may not sell nor transfer your inf
Unfortunate, but it is the way the cookie crumbles (Score:1)
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Re:Unfortunate, but it is the way the cookie crumb (Score:2)
The only way?
Nope [canadiantire.ca]
What's the problem? (Score:1)
You wouldn't buy a product that says "Insecure!" on the box, would you?
-- dbg
Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Funny)
16 year old and a middle-aged man (Score:1, Offtopic)
My midlife crisis was...interesting. When all was said and done, I should have just gotten a little red sports car. In the long run, it would have been less expensive and I could still enjoy driving it. The teenager was certainly fun to drive, but there comes a time when the faint ridiculousness of it all weighs heavily on the mind. For example, there are few things as sobering for a 40-year-old man as trying to decide what to get your girlfriend on the oc
One more point for Nintendo... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why can't EA learn from Nintendo?
More info on http://www.nintendowifi.com/customersupport/Suppo
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Of course, it is possible to be anonymous, to an extent. If you pay for your system and games with cash, and never use an access point that could be tied to you, then it's probably impossible to tie the system or the online usage to your actual person. However, you
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However there isn't anything that ties a specific person to that DS. So from an end user concerned with privacy it is Anonymous.
Being pedantic the assumption may be wrong. (Score:1)
The policy states that MS will hand over the XBox Live account information, without stating what is in those account details. It could just be a username, or geographic details, or more. The details about acquiring credit card information is in a seperate paragraph, which includes the provisios "will vary depending upon the activity and may include".
Whilst it makes sense for an ea.com account created when purchasing an on-line game to have the credit card information the policy, as I read it, doesn't real
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Not surprising... (Score:4, Interesting)
This, to me, is spyware, and customer data collection needs to be conspicuously disclosed (not buried in an EULA*), and it needs to be opt-in only, by law.
* The most infuriating part is that I read the EULA for CoD/CoD2, and I didn't see anything about them collecting my data and sending it home. They didn't disclose it at all.
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I don't think that vista will be able to fix all of that and will popup the UAP dialog box when you try to play the game or the game will just error out if you don't run it as admin.
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That's just the thing, I run in limited mode and most games install just fine. XP can handle installs on just one user account, even if it's a limited account. The only reason they need those rights is to change the something specific to the OS. (I haven't checked, but DirectX probably shouldn't even require it now, since DX 9 went .NET)
Installations aside, though, CoD/CoD2 can on
Re:Not surprising... (Score:4, Informative)
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Uh oh (Score:2)
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It's a reference to Futurama, something weird that Fry said that I hoped might clue in any idiot moderators that the thing was a joke. Oh, well...
Here. If you don't like it do something. (Score:5, Informative)
Heres an information practice that could cause substantial consumer injury. EA is collecting my address, phone number, birth date, name, credit card information - usually the only other piece of information you need to charge the card is the three digit number at the back of the card. Some websites don't even require that. If you win a prize you also get to give them your SSN!!!
Do you trust your security to a three digit number? Do you trust a giant company to not have any disgruntled employees with access to the database? And a paper and pencil to circumvent the copy restrictions on the data (if they have that even). I trust EA to publish (mostly crappy sports) games and thats all. None of the other information they collect is necessary to run EA online. The very fact that they are collecting data they do not need makes me actively distrust them. This entire implictly agreeing to hand your data over smells fishy.
See that "File a complaint" [ftc.gov] link on the top of the FTC webpage. Ten minutes. Slashdot the damn thing - I'm sure the FTC will take notice. At very least they should be able to contact Microsoft and EA and be able to change what data is collected. Seriously the best way to deal with a stupid bunch of corporate lawyers is have a government agency snarl at them.
here's the problem (Score:3, Funny)
If you don't want to give credit card info to... (Score:1)
Guess what, /. might do it too... (Score:1)
All that has a monetary value. Does
As for MS and EA, i never put my credit card info in my console. XBOX Live is a great service, but i'm not about to provide my credit card account to the world on it.
Just buy a card at your local retailer and input the code in your console. That's all that's required.
BIG deal? (Score:1)