EA Germany: "Origin Is Not Spyware"

[Femaref]

all i have to say about privacy issues is:
sandboxing FTW!
or just blocking it from touching anything but 256 MB of its folder...
or running it in virtual machine

Sandboxing can cause problems with the game as well, and using a virtual machine is totally out of the question, as you bf3 would have to run in th vm as well. That can't end well, I promise.

 

[draythefingerless]

sigh... this again... im sorry but i couldnt care less what origin does.. i have a facebook acount, i have a steam acount, i have a itunes acount, my info is prob passed around all over from those companies yet origin keeps taking the flak for something that just about every other company does

There is a difference between that. Facebook? You are willingly giving the information to them for a service. Steam? You are asked if you want to upload the information, again willingly aggreing. Same with iTunes. Origin however simply leeches the information of you, with you having no say in it. For me (as a professional programmer) that is the definition of spyware.

not quite...both facebook and steam do not voluntarily collect info like origin, but say, your game crashes in steam. that crash creates an automatic bug report, sent to valve. that bug report may contain hardware n software info. but to a point, Origin DOES cross the line in my opinion. when you upload personal files, as many germans have reported, youre gonna get fucked. and since its germany, you basically are gonna get fucked by all Europe in court.

 

[Femaref]

Whatever you say, EA. I'll believe it when I see irrefutable evidence that your software does not spy on me in any way. The state commissioner of Nordrhein-Westfalen is coming to get answers with a metaphorical rubber glove, so lube up and bend over; until the presentation of conclusive evidence, any PR comments of yours are nothing but hot air to me.

You can't really prove the absence of something in a software, especially closed source ones. EA can say all the want, it is no proof. Also, even if origin were open source, you could only trust it if you read, understand and compile the source yourself, which nobody would do.

There will be folks whose job it is to determine whether Origin is playing fair or not. Don't tell me it can't be done - it can. And it will.
This is now a legal matter, and if it is determined Origin's methods constitute foul play, heads will roll. The evidence will be presented fully (anything else would not be accepted, seeing how this matter has garnered attention from the media), and I'll make any further decisions based on that.

Of course there will, however they will only be able to assess the symptoms (that is, it not grabbing data).

all i have to say about privacy issues is:
sandboxing FTW!
or just blocking it from touching anything but 256 MB of its folder...
or running it in virtual machine

sigh... this again... im sorry but i couldnt care less what origin does.. i have a facebook acount, i have a steam acount, i have a itunes acount, my info is prob passed around all over from those companies yet origin keeps taking the flak for something that just about every other company does

There is a difference between that. Facebook? You are willingly giving the information to them for a service. Steam? You are asked if you want to upload the information, again willingly aggreing. Same with iTunes. Origin however simply leeches the information of you, with you having no say in it. For me (as a professional programmer) that is the definition of spyware.

not quite...both facebook and steam do not voluntarily collect info like origin, but say, your game crashes in steam. that crash creates an automatic bug report, sent to valve. that bug report may contain hardware n software info. but to a point, Origin DOES cross the line in my opinion. when you upload personal files, as many germans have reported, youre gonna get fucked. and since its germany, you basically are gonna get fucked by all Europe in court.

not quite...both facebook and steam do noI said exactly what you said. You have a say in what information you provide with facebook, steam, iTunes. Not so with origin.

 

[Torrasque]

Two things caught my eye with this article

The furore began a few days ago...Hehe, "furore"
There's a wider debate to be had over whether or not companies should highlight these parts of their EULAs, and about whether or not they should be forcing people to sign up for them just to access widely-anticipated titles.

I know none of us read the terms and conditions to any of the games we play, but because someone actually DID read the Origins EULA, we are having this discussion.
Its stupid to highlight any part of the EULA, people should just learn to read them instead of clicking and agreeing blindly (don't worry, I do it too)

 

[draythefingerless]

Whatever you say, EA. I'll believe it when I see irrefutable evidence that your software does not spy on me in any way. The state commissioner of Nordrhein-Westfalen is coming to get answers with a metaphorical rubber glove, so lube up and bend over; until the presentation of conclusive evidence, any PR comments of yours are nothing but hot air to me.

You can't really prove the absence of something in a software, especially closed source ones. EA can say all the want, it is no proof. Also, even if origin were open source, you could only trust it if you read, understand and compile the source yourself, which nobody would do.

There will be folks whose job it is to determine whether Origin is playing fair or not. Don't tell me it can't be done - it can. And it will.
This is now a legal matter, and if it is determined Origin's methods constitute foul play, heads will roll. The evidence will be presented fully (anything else would not be accepted, seeing how this matter has garnered attention from the media), and I'll make any further decisions based on that.

Of course there will, however they will only be able to assess the symptoms (that is, it not grabbing data).

all i have to say about privacy issues is:
sandboxing FTW!
or just blocking it from touching anything but 256 MB of its folder...
or running it in virtual machine

sigh... this again... im sorry but i couldnt care less what origin does.. i have a facebook acount, i have a steam acount, i have a itunes acount, my info is prob passed around all over from those companies yet origin keeps taking the flak for something that just about every other company does

There is a difference between that. Facebook? You are willingly giving the information to them for a service. Steam? You are asked if you want to upload the information, again willingly aggreing. Same with iTunes. Origin however simply leeches the information of you, with you having no say in it. For me (as a professional programmer) that is the definition of spyware.

not quite...both facebook and steam do not voluntarily collect info like origin, but say, your game crashes in steam. that crash creates an automatic bug report, sent to valve. that bug report may contain hardware n software info. but to a point, Origin DOES cross the line in my opinion. when you upload personal files, as many germans have reported, youre gonna get fucked. and since its germany, you basically are gonna get fucked by all Europe in court.

all i have to say about privacy issues is:
sandboxing FTW!
or just blocking it from touching anything but 256 MB of its folder...
or running it in virtual machine

sigh... this again... im sorry but i couldnt care less what origin does.. i have a facebook acount, i have a steam acount, i have a itunes acount, my info is prob passed around all over from those companies yet origin keeps taking the flak for something that just about every other company does

There is a difference between that. Facebook? You are willingly giving the information to them for a service. Steam? You are asked if you want to upload the information, again willingly aggreing. Same with iTunes. Origin however simply leeches the information of you, with you having no say in it. For me (as a professional programmer) that is the definition of spyware.

not quite...both facebook and steam do not voluntarily collect info like origin, but say, your game crashes in steam. that crash creates an automatic bug report, sent to valve. that bug report may contain hardware n software info. but to a point, Origin DOES cross the line in my opinion. when you upload personal files, as many germans have reported, youre gonna get fucked. and since its germany, you basically are gonna get fucked by all Europe in court.

I said exactly what you said. You have a say in what information you provide with facebook, steam, iTunes. Not so with origin.

actually theres quite a bit of infamy that facebook collects data in shady ways. i dunno bout iTunes. and as for the bug reports in steam i said, they are automatic. you cannot choose to not send it. if you crash your game, the bug is auto sent to steam. you cant stop it. but its only hardware n software info. that is a grey area for some people, not for me thou...and by that i mean, i dont think its harmful.

 

[modularstar]

Wow, you can't fault the german gamers, they really get stuff done. But then again, i doubt EA actually took much notice...

 

[Spy_Guy]

A friend of mine told me about a person who created software to monitor Origin's activities.

He was a bit dissatisfied when he found it going through his declarations, understandably enough.

If I was a better programmer, I'd think of a way to conceal that data from Origin.
Possibly by a virtual PC setup, which would be allowed to access the system resources needed to run smoothly... but one that'd be completely empty.
I'm most likely talking crap, though =3
I have no idea whether or not that'd be doable.

 

[TheMadJack]

Die EA, die!

*cough* Sorry about that. Hrm. EA is evil. Naturally, everything branding the EA logo made by EA people (not necessarily those bought by EA) is taking from it (like father like son?). I will -never- -ever- install Origin. You can't pay me enough to install that crap.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

We assure you, the Spyware is in the games, not Origin.

 

[teebeeohh]

one technical thing first: Der Spiegel is not a newspaper, but a news magazine, like TIME magazine.

i am actually confused here because the vast amount of people now up in arms about this didn't care when it was revealed that the several (read almost all) German law enforcement agencies were using trojans (and really bad ones that leave a permanent back door) to spy on peoples computers despite the fact that our highest court of law ruled that they may not do so.


OT: it's Germany, we are really good at bitching and complaining while drinking/on the internet but not much else. seriously if there will never be a revolution in Germany because when push comes to shove people would stay home if the revolution does not have proper government permissions and such. people here would not even storm a train station without buying a ticket.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

That's funny EA, I don't believe you!

 

[Sonicron]

The worst thing for me is, I already have this piece of crap on my PC because of Crysis 2 (though back then it was called the EA Download Manager). All I can do now is keep it switched off and pray it doesn't have some method of snooping around my system anyway.

 

[Stormz]

Even if it wasn't, which I'm sure it probably is still. I wouldn't buy any game that forces me to use origin. I refuse to play a game that forces a constant internet connection. It isn't going to happen.

 

[ph0b0s123]

actually theres quite a bit of infamy that facebook collects data in shady ways. i dunno bout iTunes. and as for the bug reports in steam i said, they are automatic. you cannot choose to not send it. if you crash your game, the bug is auto sent to steam. you cant stop it. but its only hardware n software info. that is a grey area for some people, not for me thou...and by that i mean, i dont think its harmful.

So Facebook is infamous for privacy issues? Is that why people complain and give Facebook a hard time and then Facebook keep having to change the way their setup works, off the back of those complains? Isn't that demonstrating that if you have a problem with the way a service treats your privacy, you should complain and push back against it.

And at the end of the day you control what info you give the Facebook by how much of your life you are posting on there.

As for the bug reports from Steam they say in their privacy policy that the info sent in bug reports is rendered anonymous.

"Valve software automatically generates and submits to Valve bug reports upon a crash or other fault in the Valve software. This automatically generated bug report information may include information about other software or hardware on a user's system. Valve does not associate and store the automatically generated bug report information with personally identifiable information."
From: http://www.valvesoftware.com/privacy.html

I would still prefer this to be optional though as are bug report sent out to Microsoft when Windows has an issue.

Origin is another front on intrusion into privacy and is doing things that the other services you have mentioned are not and hence deserves all the flak it is getting. It is just a shame that people in Germany have only just woken up to this when it has been know about for the last couple of months now. Are there people using this as an excuse to return a game they have decided they don't like, I bet there is. That's EA's own fault for leaving themselves open to this kind of blow back.

Next we will get comments from EA that they are surprised by this reaction, that is when they will lose all credibility...

 

[brainslurper]

all i have to say about privacy issues is:
sandboxing FTW!
or just blocking it from touching anything but 256 MB of its folder...
or running it in virtual machine

Then origin will refuse to let you play your games.

 

[ph0b0s123]

The worst thing for me is, I already have this piece of crap on my PC because of Crysis 2 (though back then it was called the EA Download Manager). All I can do now is keep it switched off and pray it doesn't have some method of snooping around my system anyway.

I have Cyrsis 2 and de installed EA download manager with no ill effects. But then I am only using the single player part of the game...

 

[Comando96]

Shame they didn't have the escapist to break the news to them 3 months ago about all of this, it would have saved them a lot of time and hassle if they have bombed it before it was released.

 

[aprildog18]

As for being in the EU, i was unaware we suffered the same data collection treatment. To my knowledge, this was only put into effect in the US soil. It was that or something else...i dun remember.

I think for the EU it was that EA couldn't take away your right to sue the company or something. Not sure though.

 

[Awexsome]

I don't get the whole outrage... are people worried that EA is secretly pilfering people's credit card numbers and selling them on 4chan to the highest bidder?

I know we enjoy the whole, "fuck the man" mindset around this site but enough with the conspiracy theories guys. Just exactly what malicious things do people think EA is trying to pull that is worth this much rage?