EA can scan your hard drive and flog contents to advertisers

[Bikerdude]

Leading on from Melans post....

 

EA can scan your hard drive and flog contents to advertisers

"It strikes us as beyond acceptable. And so much more serious now that EA has made its intentions clear to make so many of their games exclusively delivered through Origin. Were there a choice about what you'd use to play Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, etc, then gamers could opt out of allowing Origin on their systems while such a policy is in place. But instead it's a case of agree to such remarkable terms, or don't play their games at all"

I'll buy the retail copy and have a nocd crack at the ready then.

 

Ubisoft apologizes, will remove From DRM

"Unfortunately, this concession is unlikely to change Ubisoft's overall policy in the near future. In the statement, Ubisoft apologized for misleading customers about From Dust's DRM, but it doesn't acknowledge that its control scheme is hasslesome to paying customers and ineffective at thwarting pirates"

- that last bit is amusing.. Im happy to buy the game but I will seek out a nocd patch to bypass thier shit.

 

Download.com infuses program installers with opt-out bloatware

Other download sites include Softpedia, MajorGeeks, FileHippo and FilesCrunch don't impregnate the files with any such nonsense.

- here we fucking go...

[Melan]

Let's add another notch to their vile nonsense: they named their digital delivery service after Origin, the best game company to have existed before Looking Glass, a company they bled dry and destroyed. No, FUCK those guys.

Edited August 25, 2011 by Melan

[nbohr1more]

Well...

 

At least Microsoft and Intel's "Trusted Platform Module" concept didn't take off. Otherwise your OS would be scanning your drives and tattling to Companies and Governments... Though, wait till "Windows Live" does what EA's "Origin" does and comes bundled with the OS.

[Baddcog]

And the worst thing Steam does is make the store page default (which is easily changed to your game library on first run) and make 'new news' (aka new game ads) pop-up on default. (Again easily fixed).

[jaxa]

I heard the download.com thing was just the result of people uploading installers with the usual bloatware like Google Toolbar and the checkbox pre-checked. So CNET is impregnating virgin downloads with a bloatware wrapper, checkboxes checked by default, etc. Sure, both the additional bloat and the opt-out checkbox suck, but it's nothing new. When you install a piece of freeware, or any software for that matter, you read the menu options carefully.

 

Of course one of download.com's "features" is that they supposedly make sure downloads are spyware clean. But nowadays spyware is almost ideological. BonzoBuddy is clearly spyware, but what about bundled Google Chrome/Toolbar? It checks in with the server constantly with some of your information in order to bolster ad relevance/revenue.

 

The solution here is clearly to never use download.com. Why go to download.com when you can go straight to VLC, Firefox, etc. Even the dumbest users can usually enter in the name of the software, hit "i'm feeling lucky" and get the correct one due to pagerank.

 

@nb: Windows Live does come bundled with the OS. It's a suite of shitty applications. Also Windows 7 installation / first startup doesn't allow you to use it without installing the "Bing Bar" (you have to uninstall it yourself, which is not difficult). Bing used to be called "Windows Live" until some Microsoft marketer struck pyrite.

Edited August 25, 2011 by jaxa

[lost_soul]

Still not buying any of these games that require a connection just to play by myself. As I've said, I have old purchased games where the exe is encrypted and they require a CD to play. Now that CDs are obsolete, did they patch it out? Nope.

 

In a decade when they feel like turning off their online services, will they patch *that* out of the modern games? (probably) nope

[Renzatic]

@nb: Windows Live does come bundled with the OS. It's a suite of shitty applications. Also Windows 7 installation / first startup doesn't allow you to use it without installing the "Bing Bar" (you have to uninstall it yourself, which is not difficult). Bing used to be called "Windows Live" until some Microsoft marketer struck pyrite.

 

No, Windows Live apps don't come installed with the OS. They can't be, due to the antitrust fallout MS had over Windows back in the day. The most MS can do is offer them up in Windows Update, where they're all opt in choices listed under nonessential downloads.

 

And I dunno if I'm reading you correctly here, but it sounds like you're saying the Bing Bar is required to start the OS after first startup. If that's what you're saying, then no, it's not true at all. Hell, I don't think I've seen a bit of Bing propaganda in anything besides Bing. There's no reference to it anywhere in the OS.

[ungoliant]

Origin lives where you live.

On your mobile phone, on your desktop and on the web, Origin is always there.

 

 

 

 

Uhhhhh, i guess they're advertising this as a feature...?

[nbohr1more]

EA has openly admitted that they have considered entering the console race. Making a universal platform like Steam means that they can ensure that users see EA as the place where they game rather than PC, Xbox360, PS3 (etc). If they then create another hardware platform where "Origin" lives they can call that the premium version and already have 3rd parties tied-in to it. I understand their aspirations and reasons to hitch their content Origin but they need to be cognizant about how PC gamers feel about intrusive DRM methods. Steam may not be perfect but they knew where to draw the line. EA seems to be doing what Sony did with Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD. Sony claimed that Blu-Ray was WAY more secure and piracy proof than HD-DVD and won the format war (then Blu-Ray was cracked the next day). EA are shouting from the hills "Origin is more secure than Steam! Get your games off of Steam and onto Origin so they won't be pirate-fodder. Hell, even if you aren't on Origin we will keep tabs on users who do pirate... we can provide those details to publishers if it's advantageous for our objectives..."

 

It's all posturing to charm like-minded publishers. I hope it backfires... but the money men who run the publishers seem to ignore the negative publicity that DRM brings. They just count it as "free-loaders who don't like our anti-piracy".

 

Bad times.

[stumpy]

if you install windows live, the new version permantly sits in the background and doesn't unload from your memory even if you exit the interactive part of the program, its near impossible to remove from memory, luckly its so badly programmed that it cant get through my firewall even though its not actually blocked by the firewall, doesn't like the configuration of

 

computer <-> firewall <-> router <-> isp <-> internet

 

says the connection is too long, if I turn off the firewall (dangerous), windows live connects to the live servers.

 

it then advertises expansions and dlc for any game you have installed on your computer that comes on the windows live platform, so I guess that windows live also scans for games on your harddrive and then spams you with adverts for them.

 

steam on the other hand doesn't have any connection problems and goes through the firewall with no problems what so ever.

Edited August 26, 2011 by stumpy

[jaxa]

No, Windows Live apps don't come installed with the OS. They can't be, due to the antitrust fallout MS had over Windows back in the day. The most MS can do is offer them up in Windows Update, where they're all opt in choices listed under nonessential downloads.

 

And I dunno if I'm reading you correctly here, but it sounds like you're saying the Bing Bar is required to start the OS after first startup. If that's what you're saying, then no, it's not true at all. Hell, I don't think I've seen a bit of Bing propaganda in anything besides Bing. There's no reference to it anywhere in the OS.

 

Windows Live apps = Windows Live Essentials 2011.

 

The laptop I bought came with the usual bloatware (I wasn't installing fresh Windows from scratch). But during the Win setup dialogs that come up, where you choose the time zone, name, etc., it came up with something like two licenses and two options on one screen, one for Windows 7 and one for Bing Bar. I had to agree to both of them to proceed. I can't find any information on it so I'm either wrong and it's a manufacturer thing or it's part of Service Pack 1.

 

Windows 7: Oct 22, 2009

Bing Bar: Apr 9, 2010 ?

Windows 7 Service Pack 1: Feb 9, 2011

 

Regardless, I don't care all that much. Feel free to stamp out any potential misinformation in this post.

[Aprilsister]

You misspelled "cunts".

 

You did mean "cunts", didn't you?

 

I mean, they are cunts.

[Bikerdude]

I mean, they are cnuts.

I was deliberate.

[Aprilsister]

Oh.

 

Well it's funny because when I saw what you'd written I was so sure you meant they were "cunts"... because they are cunts. I guess maybe they are cnuts too.

[Bikerdude]

Its the polite version of the C word :-) and yes EA are a bunch of C***s

[Shadowhide]

hope they wont find my porn

[Serpentine]

I still don't quite understand how this differs from Steam. Steam have pretty much the same stuff in one of their EULA's (Cos heh, they use about 3 for different parts of the client). Just because they offer you the choice of opting into some part of the public stats, suddenly people forget about the rest. I guess they know what portable apps I have, because of all those default registry locations that I don't use, the installer information that isn't there. The ring0 helper driver required to launch games on restricted Server03/08. Mmmm mmmm.

 

That said, I havent exactly looked at the EULAs in a few years, but this is all so commonplace that it looks like some other sides are fueling a fire.

 

If there was something I'd have liked, it would be not to have called it Origin :<

[Bikerdude]

The difference between steam and EA was explain in the link in the first post. Steam limits it nosey-ing around to its own products and would only ask to scan your system for its yearly "who is playing steam with what hardware reports" and you can say no to said request. EA are not give you the option to say no, so its "if you want to play our game, you have to let us snoop your hard drive and link that to your personal data on your origin account, which EA will then sell on to 3rd parties" Its dosent get my outright brazen than that. The reponce from the majority of games will be "EA can fuck right off"

[Mortem Desino]

Maybe I should write and distribute a special C# program for Origin to sniff out and report back to its database.

 

I can just imagine these "Third parties" getting funny faces if they read a statistic - 5% of these people have installed a program named "EA can fuck right off"?

 

Oh well. I don't plan on buying anything on Origin now. Those EA twerps are being terrible representatives of the gaming industry.

[Bikerdude]

5% of these people have installed a program named "EA can fuck right off"?

AWESOME...lol

[lost_soul]

I also find stories like this extremely entertaining. Basically, this guy offered to sell his Steam account which had tuns of games and it was permanently disabled as a result. Notice how if they think you have done something that goes against the TOS (or even if you're just talking about doing so), they can take away access to your games. They don't need a lawyer to come after you or anything, they just type one line into a database and the job is done.

 

Of course you could always hire a lawyer yourself in this situation to get access to your games back... which is so totally financially worth it!

 

It cracks me up.

[Aprilsister]

Childish futility and abject powerlessness.

 

Such a riot...

[Serpentine]

Just like you only lease books from the Kindle store. You can also rent a (leased) textbook on a yearly basis! Hey kids, remember when we owned things and had tangible rights? Those were the daaaays.

 

Or you become an expert of marine acquisition and retrieval, books and parrots Yarrr!

 

We also have plans for the buy screen at the start of missions, you know - without you paying real world cash for all those premium golden broadheads, none of this would have been possible. We'll also be renaming "Fanmissions" to "Licensed third-party DLCs", you can rent them from the ingame shop for very reasonable rates.

 

Replies to this post will be charged to your 'TDM dot com' Premier Membership creditcard at once again very reasonable rates (as determined by magic and greed).

[lost_soul]

Don't forget that all purchased equipment is non-transferable. When the player buys an arrow, if he doesn't use it in the mission it simply disappears. We wouldn't want him/her giving free equipment to other players!

[AluminumHaste]

Let's add another notch to their vile nonsense: they named their digital delivery service after Origin, the best game company to have existed before Looking Glass, a company they bled dry and destroyed. No, FUCK those guys.

 

I miss Wing Commander