"For privacy, Origin is the same as Steam" WRONG!!! -Updated

[black_knight1337]

Ea don't just take your specs. They take ALL of your hardware and software information. So they can see every single program on your computer and how frequently you use them. Add the fact that Ea are a bunch of dicks and throw the ban hammer around freely, you get a program which sees every other program installed allowing Ea to ban you for 3rd party patches and mods. If Origin was anywhere near as good as Steam (privacy and functionality wise) then I would be open to installing it. However it isn't anywhere near the quality of Steam so I won't even consider touching it any more. Then there is the fact that Ea have turned Bioware from an epic dev with awesome writing skills to a developer focused solely on mass marketing. Seriously though fuck Ea and fuck everything they touch.

 

[Therumancer]

Lets say EA takes your hardware specs. Then EA uses this information to better refine and update games. Better games right? Isnt that the point?

Worst case scenario is that EA sells this information. What, exactly, is -anyone- going to do with this information? Like seriously.

Someone, please, tell me what the WORST CASE SCENARIO could possibly be if EA found out my Hardware and Software data?

Well how about EA doesn't decide to just do that anymore. Maybe they mine your system for personal information to try and build a psychological profile of you, or check your browsing history and overall program usage so they can pick the right things to imitate or what sites they might want to advertise on.

What's worse is once this infrastructure is out there and unopposed, it's only a matter of time before one of these goverment bills to go after people's personal information and violate your right to privacy goes through, software companies start getting their mining software used by federal requirement to search for illegal information, or to form a goverment profile on you.

The basic point is the right to privacy is the right to privacy, a company doesn't have the right to go through my stuff without permission, or to force me to agree to that to use their software. What's more I feel when they get away with it, things will just go further from there.

Paranoid? Maybe, but understand I don't like ANYONE going through my system even if there really isn't anything there to find. Even people I know fairly well.

 

[SoldierC4]

Ea don't just take your specs. They take ALL of your hardware and software information. So they can see every single program on your computer and how frequently you use them. Add the fact that Ea are a bunch of dicks and throw the ban hammer around freely, you get a program which sees every other program installed allowing Ea to ban you for 3rd party patches and mods. If Origin was anywhere near as good as Steam (privacy and functionality wise) then I would be open to installing it. However it isn't anywhere near the quality of Steam so I won't even consider touching it any more. Then there is the fact that Ea have turned Bioware from an epic dev with awesome writing skills to a developer focused solely on mass marketing. Seriously though fuck Ea and fuck everything they touch.

Not to insult, but it doesn't sound like you put any work at all into that comment. "They take ALL of your hardware and software information."? Seriously, show me your evidence for this, I keep hearing people say this but never see this evidence, and btw Steam gathers a lot of information regarding hardware and software too. Go look at theirs statistics charts, they gather info on almost all of people's back round programs and their hardware they are running. But, for the same reason people don't pick on Steam, I don't pick on Origin, because I have yet to see them take anything actually important.

Go read back on my earlier post, I went and looked at what Origin gathered from my system on a standard start up, they gathered almost no outside data that most other programs don't already gather.

 

[Jimmybobjr]

Right.
Ive waited 3 days for a decent responce to my initial question.

Ive not gotten a single good counter-argument.

Almost all of the posts that responded seemed to rely on "Principle" of some sort, many just "Dont like people going around in my computer" and one complained that it was due to paranoia.

I read all of the above as "I dont like it, because i dont like it."

Its like my father saying "No" To a request. Why? "BECAUSE I SAID SO!"

Its all bull.

 

[Nikolaz72]

It's not just aggregate data, EA give themselves the right to take personally identifiable info too. I don't even want to think how bad they could get with all the data on my hard disk.

Where does it say so? I finally had a look for that blasted piece of document because nobody wants to quote the damn thing - people keep throwing accusation without backing them up. Here's what I found:

EULAs and Other Disclosures [http://www.ea.com/1/product-eulas]

Origin's EULA (PDF) [http://eacom.s3.amazonaws.com/EULA_Origin_9.16.11.pdf]

Spoiler: Consent to Collection and Use of Data.

2. Consent to Collection and Use of Data.

EA knows that you care how information about you is collected, used and
shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly.
Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and 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.

In addition to information that you give EA directly, EA collects non-
personally identifiable (or anonymous) information for purposes of improving our
products and services, providing services to you, facilitating the provision of
software updates, dynamically served content and product support as well as
communicating with you. The non-personally identifiable information that EA
collects includes technical and related information that identifies your computer
(including the Internet Protocol Address) and operating system, as well as
information about your Application usage (including but not limited to successful
installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware.
As noted above, this information is gathered periodically for purposes such as
improving our products and services, troubleshooting bugs, and otherwise
enhancing your user experience.

This and all other data provided to EA and/or collected by EA in
connection with your installation and use of this Application is collected, used,
stored and transmitted in accordance with EA's Privacy Policy located at
www.ea.com. To the extent that anything in this section conflicts or is
inconsistent with the terms of EA's Privacy Policy, the terms of the Privacy Policy
shall control.

EA's Privacy policy [http://www.ea.com/privacy-policy]

Spoiler: What Is Personal Information And When Does EA Collect It?

III. What Is Personal Information And When Does EA Collect It?

EA collects both personal and non-personal consumer information. Personal information collected by EA is discussed below in this section. Non-personal information is discussed below in Section IV.

Personal information is information that identifies you and that can be used alone, to contact you on-line or off-line. EA may collect personal information from our online visitors during:

● Contest registration and prize acceptance;
● Warranty registration and requests;
● Customer support and/or technical service requests;
● Player match up and other head-to-head online competitions;
● Registration for games and/or special game-specific events;
● Newsletter subscriptions, referral services, and other marketing surveys and email campaigns;
● Registration for EA/Origin and/or other service accounts;
● Creation of a personal profile;
● Product, service and/or subscription orders;
● Service requests from third party service providers on our site;
● Access to our products and/or services on social networks or other third party services; and
● Otherwise through use of our software, mobile or online services where personal information is required for use and/or participation.

Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, email address, phone number, home address, birth date, mobile phone number and credit card information. Visitors to EA Mobile may be asked to provide the name of their mobile service carrier, model of their mobile phone and a valid mobile number so that we may provide purchase instructions directly to their mobile phone. In that context, your mobile number will only be used to send you a text message with a link to download your game and will not be retained for any other purpose. Prize winners may be required to provide their Social Security or other identification number for tax purposes, and will be used only for prize fulfillment.

Spoiler: What Is Non-Personal Information and When Does EA Collect It?

IV. What Is Non-Personal Information and When Does EA Collect It?

Non-personal information, alone, cannot be used to identify or contact you. EA collects non-personal information about your use of our online and mobile products and services both on our website and in the course of game play and software usage (on PC, mobile and game system platforms).

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information contact the Privacy Policy Administrator in your country listed on our site at privacyadmin.ea.com, or if your country is not listed, by contacting the Privacy Policy Administrator in the United States. There may be instances where we are legally required to retain your information.

A. What Types of Non-Personal Information Does EA Collect?

When you use EA online and mobile products and services or you play our games on your PC or game system, we may collect certain non-personally identifiable information for purposes including improving our products and services, troubleshooting bugs, providing services to you, facilitating the provision of software updates, dynamically served content and product support as well as communicating with you. The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance. We may also receive either non-personal or public information from third parties in connection with market and demographic studies and/or other data that we use to supplement personal information provided directly by you.

B. How Does EA Collect Non-Personal Information?

EA collects non-personal information along with personal information when you actively provide it in the context of various online and mobile activities including online and mobile purchases, game registration and marketing surveys, for instance. In addition, we and other third parties use cookies and other technologies to passively collect non-personal demographic information, personalize your experience on our sites and monitor advertisements and other activities as described below. We may also derive from the information collected other facts, such as determining the applicable tax rate based on your IP address.

1. Cookies

Cookies are small files applied to your Internet browser to track movements within websites. We may link cookie information to personal information. Cookies link to information regarding what items you have selected for purchase at our store, pages you have viewed, or games you have played. This information is used to keep track of your shopping cart and make sure you don't see the same ad repeatedly, for example. Also, we use cookies to deliver content specific to your interest and to monitor website or game usage. We and third parties collect information on what games are played, how much time is spent playing the games and which ads or links are clicked. Some of our sites use an outside ad company to display ads. These ads contain cookies. Cookies received with banner ads are applied by our ad companies, and EA does not have access to this information. Most browsers are automatically set to accept cookies whenever you visit a website. You can disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent. However some areas of our sites will not function properly if you do so. You can set your web browser to warn you about attempts to place cookies on your computer, or limit the type of cookies you allow. For more information concerning how to disable your cookies, please visit help.ea.com, support.popcap.com (for PopCap products) or swtor.com/support (for Star Wars?: The Old Republic).

We and other third parties may also use flash cookies, also known as ?local shared objects,? on our sites that employ Flash technology. Flash cookies are small files similar to browser cookies and are used to remember the site?s settings to personalize the look and feel of the site. Like normal cookies, Flash cookies are represented as small files on your computer. One method of preventing Flash cookies from being placed is to adjust your preferences in the Macromedia Website Privacy Settings Panel at www.macromedia.com.

If you disable cookies, you may lose some of the features and functionality of playing our games, as cookies are necessary to track and enhance your game activities. Please note that companies delivering advertisements in our games or on our websites may also use cookies or other technologies, and those practices are subject to their own policies.

Please note that this privacy policy covers the use of cookies by EA only and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

2. Clear GIFs And Tracking Pixels

Clear GIFs (a.k.a. web bugs, beacons or tags) are small graphic images placed on a web page, web-based document, or in an email message. Clear GIFs are invisible to the user because they are typically very small (only 1-by-1 pixel) and the same color as the background of the web page, document or email message. We do not use clear GIFs to collect personal information about you. However, we may use clear GIFs to capture statistical usage information for our web pages, features or other elements on a web page. We correlate this information to a user to personalize user experience and for statistical analysis of user experiences on our web pages.

We and third parties may also use tracking pixels, which allow us to advertise more efficiently by excluding our current users from certain promotional messages or identifying the source of a new installation.

3. Internet Log Files

EA and other third parties also may maintain log files which contain IP addresses. An IP address is a numeric address that may be assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider. In general, we use log files to monitor traffic on our websites, to troubleshoot technical problems and authenticate users' entitlements to our products. In the event of user abuse of our websites, however, we may block certain IP addresses or game system IDs provided by our licensed hardware manufacturers. If available, IP addresses and game system IDs may be used to personally identify you in order to enforce our Terms of Service.

4. Analytic Metrics Tools and Other Technologies

EA also uses its own proprietary analytic metrics tool and other third party analytics technologies to collect non-personal information when you use our online products and services and/or play our games on your PC, game system and/or mobile device. These tools and technologies use server log files, web beacons, cookies, tracking pixels and other technologies to collect and analyze certain types of information, including cookies, IP addresses (including for purposes of determining your approximate geographic location), mobile or other hardware device ID or other device identifiers, browser types, browser language, information passed from your browser (if any), referring and exit pages, and URLs, platform type, the number of clicks, information about your media, peripheral hardware, software and/or applications installed on your machine and/or device, domain names and types, landing pages, pages viewed and the order of those pages, the date and amount of time spent on particular pages, other Internet and website usage information, game state and the date and time of activity on our websites or games, information about how your game is used, including game metrics and statistics, feature usage and purchase history, as well as unique hardware identifiers such as MAC Address, mobile unique device ID (if applicable) and other similar information.

The third party analytics companies who collect information on our sites and in the context of our online and mobile products and/or services may combine the information collected with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online or mobile products and services relating to your activities across their network of websites as well as online and/or mobile products and services. Many of these companies collect and use information under their own privacy policies.

Some EA websites and services use Google Analytics, a web analytic service offered by Google Inc. (?Google?). Google Analytics uses ?Cookies?, text files that are stored on your PC and that enables the analysis of your usage of this website. The information about your usage of websites, collected through these cookies, will be transmitted to and stored on Google server based in the US. On behalf of EA, Google will use this information in order to evaluate your usage of this websites, to make reports on website activities and/or to provide the website operator with other services related to this websites. Your IP-address collected by Google Analytics will not be matched up with other data of Google. You may prevent the installation of cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Please note that if you disable cookies, it is possible that you may not use all functionalities of EA?s websites. You may also prevent the cookies from collecting and storing your information by downloading and installing the following browser-plugin under the following link http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

A non-exclusive list of the other analytics companies that operate their own technologies on our sites and online and/or mobile products and/or services can be found at privacyappendix.ea.com.

5. Third Party Ad Serving Technology

EA?s websites, online or mobile products or services may employ third party ad serving technologies that use cookies, clear GIFs, web beacons, tracking pixels or other technologies to collect information as a result of ad serving through our products or services as well as to help track. Some third-party dynamic in-game advertisement serving technology enable advertising to be temporarily uploaded into your web browser or mobile device and replaced while you are online. We or third parties operating the advertisement serving technology may use demographic information such as age and gender as well as information logged from your hardware or device to ensure that appropriate advertising is presented within the site, online or mobile product or service and to calculate or control the number of unique and repeat views of a given ad, and/or deliver ads that relate to your interests and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns. We or third parties may log data for this purpose including IP address (including for purposes of determining your approximate geographic location), unique device I.D., information about your software, applications and hardware, browser information (and/or information passed via your browser), hardware, machine or device make and model, advertisement(s) served, in game location, length of time an advertisement was visible, other Internet and website usage information, web pages and mobile internet sites which have been viewed by you (as well as date and time), domain type, size of the advertisement, advertisement response (if any), and angle of view. The foregoing data may be used and disclosed per this policy and the privacy policy of the company providing the ad serving technology and to other third parties in a form that does not personally identify you.

The advertising companies who deliver ads for us may combine the information collected or obtained from EA with other information they have independently collected from other websites and/or other online or mobile products and services relating to your web browser's activities across their network of websites. Many of these companies collect and use information under their own privacy policies.

A non-exclusive list of ad serving companies that operate their own networks on our sites and online and/or mobile products and/or services can be found at privacyappendix.ea.com.

For more information about the practices of other large ad serving companies that may collect information based on your interaction with ads on this site and others, or to "opt out" of targeted advertising delivered by National Advertising Initiative (NAI) member ad networks, you should visit www.networkadvertising.org.

These ad serving technologies are integrated into our sites, online or mobile products and services; if you do not want to use this technology, do not play.

6. Anti-Cheat and Fraud Prevention Technologies

EA strives to provide a safe and fair gaming environment to all players of its games. To prevent fraudulent activities and behaviors that may negatively affect the experiences of a player, EA is authorized to use "anti-cheating" software, or applications for the prevention of fraud for our internet presence, during the use of our online products and/or services (including online games), and mobile platforms.

At login to EA online products and/or services, during the setup of an EA/Origin account, and/or at the point of sale, EA may collect data about your device in order to create a hash of machine components. Information collected for this purpose shall not be stored in retrievable form. EA uses the collected information for the prevention of fraud, and for authentication purposes. EA may consolidate the machine hash created for this purpose with your EA/Origin account; data consolidated this way will not be shared with any other third party, and will be used exclusively for security and authentication purposes by EA.

Spoiler: What Happens To The Information EA Collects?

VI. What Happens To The Information EA Collects?

A. How EA Uses Your Information

EA uses your information to fulfill your specific requests, purchase orders and to send you purchase confirmation and other account-related information. In addition, the personal information you provide will allow us to send you messages about things including new products, features, enhancements, special offers, upgrade opportunities, contests and events of interest. You may also later opt out of certain of these communications.

Otherwise, EA uses personal and non-personal information, both individually and combined together, to better enhance your user experience, improve our products and services, understand the behavior and preferences of our customers, to troubleshoot technical problems, to serve static and dynamic advertising, for authentication purposes, to enforce our Terms of Service, to ensure proper functioning of our products and services as well as to help improve them. In addition, we combine non-personal information with personal information, such as an email address, for purposes including providing excellent customer service, administering loyalty programs, and tailoring our communications, offerings, web pages and/or game play experience to you.

By use of friend finder tools such as Facebook, Game Center or other third party services in our online and mobile products and services, you acknowledge that use of these friend finder tools will help you find your contacts and will also allow your contacts to associate your EA Account, also known as an Origin Account, (and related gaming entitlements, including games played on PC, mobile and console platforms) with your social networking profile and/or email address. Your resulting friends? list, which may be accessible across EA social platforms as available, will be subject to this privacy policy. Note that the friends that you choose to include on any EA or Origin friends? list may be able to find and/or identify you in the context of different EA products and services and see the profiles you have established. Those friends may also be able to see the gamertags that you use across EA's suite of products and services. Choose your friends carefully.

If you choose to use our referral service to "Tell a Friend" about an EA product or site, we will ask you for your friend?s name and email address. We will send your friend an email on your behalf inviting him or her to visit the site or check out our product. EA stores your friend's name and email for a short period for the sole purpose of sending this email and for redundancy checking, to be sure that your friend does not receive multiple copies of the same email message. We do not keep or use this information for any other purpose.

Your participation in tournaments or other online game events is also conditional upon our collection, use, storage, transmission and public display of statistical data (such as your scores, rankings and achievements) generated through your participation.

B. Will EA Share My Information With Third Parties?

EA will never share your personally identifiable information with third parties without your consent. We may, however, share non-personally identifiable, aggregated and/or public information with third parties. There may be circumstances where you may share information on your own. Please see section XI for more details about your rights to information you share publicly on EA and other third party sites and forums. You may also opt in to allow EA to share your personal information with companies and organizations that provide products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. To opt out of further communications from a marketing partner or sponsor with whom your information has been shared, please contact that partner or sponsor directly.

EA does not disclose any personal information about children under 18 years of age who have registered on any of our websites to third parties, or share or disclose personal information other than as set forth in this policy, provided however, that in the event of a merger, acquisition, or the unlikely event of bankruptcy, management of EA customer information may be transferred to its successor or assign regardless of age.

From time to time, EA employs third party contractors to collect personal information on our behalf to provide email delivery, product, prize or promotional fulfillment, contest administration, credit card processing, shipping or other services on our sites. When requesting these services, you may be asked to supply your name, mailing address, telephone number and email address to our contractors. We ask some third party contractors, such as credit agencies, data analytics or market research firms, to supplement personal information that you provide to us for our own marketing and demographic studies, so that we can consistently improve our sites and related advertising to better meet our visitors' needs and preferences. To enrich our understanding of individual customers, we tie this information to the personal information you provide to us.

When our third party agents or service providers collect and/or have access any information other than non-personal, anonymous and/or aggregated data, EA requires that they use data consistently with our stated privacy policies and protect the confidentiality of personal information they collect or have access to in the course of their engagement by EA. These third parties are prohibited from using your personal information for any other purpose without your specific consent.

You will be notified before your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party.

We may also access and disclose personal information, including personal communications, in connection with report abuse functions in our products and services, to enforce legal rights and comply with the law, or to comply with an order from a government entity or other competent authority, or when we have reason to believe that a disclosure is necessary to address potential or actual injury or interference with our rights, property, operations, users or others who may be harmed or may suffer loss or damage, or when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, combat fraud and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on EA. Note that certain publically available information you post and communicate on our and third party sites and services is public information for which you have no expectation of privacy. See Section XI for more details.

I'm sick of it. From now on, nobody has an excuse for not backing up their claims with quotes. Not that you had before, but now you have easy access to links and relevant info.

"name, email address, phone number, home address, birth date, mobile phone number and credit card information" I think thats close enough to what I would regard as personal info. If I didnt say OK to it. If, like Amazon. They used it to deliver games to you if digital stuff failed. I might have been more OK with it, but they are just collecting it for no specific reason other than, youknow. As many people can suspect and fear, their war on piracy.

 

[Madman123456]

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware,...

This is from the "revised" Eula. No restriction about Origin software only and they'd like to scan my peripheral Hardware as well.
So this is pretty much Spyware. But whatever, People are apparently not too concerned about that;
I'd like to know how this Data is being stored and how save it is there. Would it be possible to hack EA and modify my Data in a Way to make it appear as if i had illegal Stuff on my Computer?
I do not know that and after the Sonyhack you'd think everyone would be more wary as to how secure any data is they give out.
What Data is collected exactly? Will it scan if i have this or that game as retailversion or as downloadversion? Or will it scan if i have Daemon Tools installed?
We've seen copy protection software that tried to uninstall certain other Software that could be used to mount CD or DVD images. We've seen cp Software that is actually harder to manually remove then most malware. GTA4 is a wonderful example.
And i don't believe EA is above such rather shady Business Practices.


I would like to know exactly what Data is being scanned and then i want to be asked before it gets sent to EA or anyone for that Matter.
Progress Reports on how well i did in this and that Game, which Options i chose or how many times i had to try before i beat this and that?

I may be ok with that. But EA doesn't say what Data they're looking for or how save it is once they have it, so i will not install the Origin software.

 

[SextusMaximus]

What is this Origin you speak of?

I know only of Steam and it's glorious freaking sales.

 

[black_knight1337]

Not to insult, but it doesn't sound like you put any work at all into that comment. "They take ALL of your hardware and software information."? Seriously, show me your evidence for this, I keep hearing people say this but never see this evidence, and btw Steam gathers a lot of information regarding hardware and software too. Go look at theirs statistics charts, they gather info on almost all of people's back round programs and their hardware they are running. But, for the same reason people don't pick on Steam, I don't pick on Origin, because I have yet to see them take anything actually important.

Go read back on my earlier post, I went and looked at what Origin gathered from my system on a standard start up, they gathered almost no outside data that most other programs don't already gather.

Evidence

Spoiler

" The non-personally identifiable information that EA
collects includes technical and related information that identifies your computer
(including the Internet Protocol Address) and operating system, as well as
information about your Application usage (including but not limited to successful
installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware." -Origin Eula

"The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance." -General Ea data collection policy

So heres the information they can take
-Ip
-Operating System
-Hardware Specifications
-Peripheral Devices
-Installed Software
-Software Usage
-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
-General Origin Feature Usage

So yeah, check the facts first.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to the Steam bit. Yes Steam takes Hardware and Software Information. However, this is nothing like what Origin is doing. With Origin you are forced into it. If you want to play any EA games on PC you have to allow EA to look at the above information. With Steam it is in the form of an optional monthly survey. You can use Steam and unless you agree to the monthly survey as well then you don't have to give them any of your information.

 

[ph0b0s123]

-snip- and btw Steam gathers a lot of information regarding hardware and software too. Go look at theirs statistics charts, they gather info on almost all of people's back round programs and their hardware they are running. But, for the same reason people don't pick on Steam, I don't pick on Origin, because I have yet to see them take anything actually important. -snip-

For the endth time, Steam's hardware software collection is OPTIONAL. That's the difference why I started this thread. ORIGIN IS NOT THE SAME AS STEAM ON THIS POINT.

That's why I am happy to use Steam, but not Origin. One change and I would be happy with Origin as well.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Lets say EA takes your hardware specs. Then EA uses this information to better refine and update games. Better games right? Isnt that the point?

Worst case scenario is that EA sells this information. What, exactly, is -anyone- going to do with this information? Like seriously.

Someone, please, tell me what the WORST CASE SCENARIO could possibly be if EA found out my Hardware and Software data?

Right.
Ive waited 3 days for a decent responce to my initial question.

Ive not gotten a single good counter-argument.

Almost all of the posts that responded seemed to rely on "Principle" of some sort, many just "Dont like people going around in my computer" and one complained that it was due to paranoia.

I read all of the above as "I dont like it, because i dont like it."

Its like my father saying "No" To a request. Why? "BECAUSE I SAID SO!"

Its all bull.

Then you are not reading very well. Your initial argument that companies are allowed to invade your privacy as much as they like as long as it is to improve their products was dumb.

Also you only stipulated that Origin collects Hardware details. It doesn't it collects details about the software on your computer which is what is more worrying.

Maybe if the question had seem less like a trolling effort it would have gotten more of a response.

I certainly am not going to give a philosophical debate on why people should expect a right to privacy, as it is fundamental.

The one thing with Origin is that it is opening a new front on invasion of privacy. That is the collection of details about your system by rooting around and then communication of those detail back to it's parent company without your permission. That is new. If unopposed other companies will start doing the same thing.

As far as the worst case scenario you mentioned. As I posted before, being banned from all the EA games you have brought because they have detected a mod they don't agree with, would be pretty bad from my POV.

 

[Atmos Duality]

As far as the worst case scenario you mentioned. As I posted before, being banned from all the EA games you have brought because they have detected a mod they don't agree with, would be pretty bad from my POV.

Once they feel Origin has an established, stable userbase to milk I've little doubt that they would do it to keep competition away from their DLC.

 

[SoldierC4]

-snip- and btw Steam gathers a lot of information regarding hardware and software too. Go look at theirs statistics charts, they gather info on almost all of people's back round programs and their hardware they are running. But, for the same reason people don't pick on Steam, I don't pick on Origin, because I have yet to see them take anything actually important. -snip-

For the endth time, Steam's hardware software collection is OPTIONAL. That's the difference why I started this thread. ORIGIN IS NOT THE SAME AS STEAM ON THIS POINT.

That's why I am happy to use Steam, but not Origin. One change and I would be happy with Origin as well.

Ok, now go back and read what I said. I am perfectly happy letting Origin gather what minuscule data they want, as it's never bothered me before. I let Steam do it, and I let most of the programs on my computer that do data gathering do this, because there is honestly nothing on my computer they could steal under their EULA that would actually bother me. If you feel Origin is taking information you don't like you should have just uninstalled it ages ago and stopped making pointless threads, or go complained to EA because EA's PR certainly won't see it here (to what degree they listen to their PR is variable though, but it definitely won't reach anyone important here on this site)

*le snip

Evidence

Spoiler

" The non-personally identifiable information that EA
collects includes technical and related information that identifies your computer
(including the Internet Protocol Address) and operating system, as well as
information about your Application usage (including but not limited to successful
installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware." -Origin Eula

"The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance." -General Ea data collection policy

So heres the information they can take
-Ip
-Operating System
-Hardware Specifications
-Peripheral Devices
-Installed Software
-Software Usage
-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
-General Origin Feature Usage

So yeah, check the facts first.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to the Steam bit. Yes Steam takes Hardware and Software Information. However, this is nothing like what Origin is doing. With Origin you are forced into it. If you want to play any EA games on PC you have to allow EA to look at the above information. With Steam it is in the form of an optional monthly survey. You can use Steam and unless you agree to the monthly survey as well then you don't have to give them any of your information.

So yea, you just proved my point, my point isn't that they gather data, this was a given AGES ago, everyone knoes Origin, as well as most other programs gather data. However here is a big diffrence between when you say "They take ALL of your hardware and software information." Which is bias talk translating to "They steal ALL the personal info on my machine". No, just no, look at what you posted. All the info you posted on what they take is fairly regular information for data gathering. They may take on a whole a bit more then some programs, but it still isn't that much. Under that EULA they can't keylog you or steal personal files, they can only look at what programs you have.

-Ip
*Needed for basically anything web based

-Operating System
*Required for the software to run

-Hardware Specifications
*Basic info needed for running software, extra data gathered on this is generally
unimportant, NEVER heard anyone complain about this

-Peripheral Devices
*Probably the most intrusive thing on here, they can see what type of keyboard or mouse you are using, or if you use a iPhone or Android (Note they say "unique device IDs or other device identifiers" not info on the device)

-Installed Software
*Installed software, at least to me this isn't intrusive, Steam does this, never bothered me

-Software Usage
*So they can see you install/uninstall software, and they can see if you like to use Chrome or Firefox, this isn't to large of a difference from installed software, except they get to know if those programs you installed are actually being used (as opposed to say if you had installed Steam, but never use it, they'd be able to tell the difference) because looking at just what is installed doesn't tell them much in terms of demographic software use.

-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
*More network information
-General Origin Feature Usage

 

[ph0b0s123]

As far as the worst case scenario you mentioned. As I posted before, being banned from all the EA games you have brought because they have detected a mod they don't agree with, would be pretty bad from my POV.

Once they feel Origin has an established, stable userbase to milk I've little doubt that they would do it to keep competition away from their DLC.

Oh, so your support them ban you for how you use their games? So you support Origin not only being a data mining software distribution system, but also being a form of control on your system as well. Nice...

 

[Atmos Duality]

Oh, so your support them ban you for how you use their games? So you support Origin not only being a data mining software distribution system, but also being a form of control on your system as well. Nice...

I have no idea how what I said translates into ME supporting them or that decision; I am simply guessing at their business strategy since it's a similar strategy employed by a number of other service providers.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Well actually they are the same. Both of them collect data and both of them ask you if they are allowed to collect data. Oh ya and if you say no to either one that you cant use their service. That goes for both Origin AND Steam. At least with Origin they have the balls to come out and say exactly what they cant and cant do with the information they gather.

WRONG!!!!! As has been said 100 times, if don't take part in Steam's hardware and software survey (the mechanism by which Steam sends the info it has found from your system), you can keep using the service. For the 100 th time disclosing your hardware and software setup is OPTIONAL with Steam. NOT THE SAME AS ORIGIN WERE IT IS MANDATORY!!!!!

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I probably should have weighed in on this earlier, since I was the one posting about how Steam does the same thing a few months back, but here it is: Steam does the same thing, and the only way you have a case here is if you actually refuse to participate in the steam hardware survey. The vast majority of Steam users, including the ones who were complaining about Origin, participate in that survey. What's more, my point was not that Origin was magically good, but that Steam is actually just as bad. Congratulations for realizing that the origin EULA is bs, but you lose points for missing the fact that they /all/ are bs, not to mention only "legal" on the technicality that the judges who ruled them so are apparently confused by the fact that it's digital; this was tried with both books and records about a century ago, and it was ruled illegal in both cases. Literally the only difference is the fact that this is a new technology, and the judges are old coots.

 

[ph0b0s123]

-snip- and btw Steam gathers a lot of information regarding hardware and software too. Go look at theirs statistics charts, they gather info on almost all of people's back round programs and their hardware they are running. But, for the same reason people don't pick on Steam, I don't pick on Origin, because I have yet to see them take anything actually important. -snip-

For the endth time, Steam's hardware software collection is OPTIONAL. That's the difference why I started this thread. ORIGIN IS NOT THE SAME AS STEAM ON THIS POINT.

That's why I am happy to use Steam, but not Origin. One change and I would be happy with Origin as well.

Ok, now go back and read what I said. I am perfectly happy letting Origin gather what minuscule data they want, as it's never bothered me before. I let Steam do it, and I let most of the programs on my computer that do data gathering do this, because there is honestly nothing on my computer they could steal under their EULA that would actually bother me. If you feel Origin is taking information you don't like you should have just uninstalled it ages ago and stopped making pointless threads, or go complained to EA because EA's PR certainly won't see it here (to what degree they listen to their PR is variable though, but it definitely won't reach anyone important here on this site)

*le snip

Evidence

Spoiler

" The non-personally identifiable information that EA
collects includes technical and related information that identifies your computer
(including the Internet Protocol Address) and operating system, as well as
information about your Application usage (including but not limited to successful
installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware." -Origin Eula

"The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance." -General Ea data collection policy

So heres the information they can take
-Ip
-Operating System
-Hardware Specifications
-Peripheral Devices
-Installed Software
-Software Usage
-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
-General Origin Feature Usage

So yeah, check the facts first.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to the Steam bit. Yes Steam takes Hardware and Software Information. However, this is nothing like what Origin is doing. With Origin you are forced into it. If you want to play any EA games on PC you have to allow EA to look at the above information. With Steam it is in the form of an optional monthly survey. You can use Steam and unless you agree to the monthly survey as well then you don't have to give them any of your information.

So yea, you just proved my point, my point isn't that they gather data, this was a given AGES ago, everyone knoes Origin, as well as most other programs gather data. However here is a big diffrence between when you say "They take ALL of your hardware and software information." Which is bias talk translating to "They steal ALL the personal info on my machine". No, just no, look at what you posted. All the info you posted on what they take is fairly regular information for data gathering. They may take on a whole a bit more then some programs, but it still isn't that much. Under that EULA they can't keylog you or steal personal files, they can only look at what programs you have.

-Ip
*Needed for basically anything web based

-Operating System
*Required for the software to run

-Hardware Specifications
*Basic info needed for running software, extra data gathered on this is generally
unimportant, NEVER heard anyone complain about this

-Peripheral Devices
*Probably the most intrusive thing on here, they can see what type of keyboard or mouse you are using, or if you use a iPhone or Android (Note they say "unique device IDs or other device identifiers" not info on the device)

-Installed Software
*Installed software, at least to me this isn't intrusive, Steam does this, never bothered me

-Software Usage
*So they can see you install/uninstall software, and they can see if you like to use Chrome or Firefox, this isn't to large of a difference from installed software, except they get to know if those programs you installed are actually being used (as opposed to say if you had installed Steam, but never use it, they'd be able to tell the difference) because looking at just what is installed doesn't tell them much in terms of demographic software use.

-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
*More network information
-General Origin Feature Usage

Again what is this other software that collects as many details about your software setup as Origin does, as a mandatory part of using that software. Please list them with evidence for your assertions.

And no I don't have Origin installed and won't use it while it works the way it does.

And no, it is not a pointless thread as people still are unable to grasp the basic concept that Origin is not the same as Steam for taking data. Yes 'taking', as I don't want them to have it but they did anyway. As long as people thing the two are the same from a privacy point of view, this thread is needed....

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

-snip- and btw Steam gathers a lot of information regarding hardware and software too. Go look at theirs statistics charts, they gather info on almost all of people's back round programs and their hardware they are running. But, for the same reason people don't pick on Steam, I don't pick on Origin, because I have yet to see them take anything actually important. -snip-

For the endth time, Steam's hardware software collection is OPTIONAL. That's the difference why I started this thread. ORIGIN IS NOT THE SAME AS STEAM ON THIS POINT.

That's why I am happy to use Steam, but not Origin. One change and I would be happy with Origin as well.

Ok, now go back and read what I said. I am perfectly happy letting Origin gather what minuscule data they want, as it's never bothered me before. I let Steam do it, and I let most of the programs on my computer that do data gathering do this, because there is honestly nothing on my computer they could steal under their EULA that would actually bother me. If you feel Origin is taking information you don't like you should have just uninstalled it ages ago and stopped making pointless threads, or go complained to EA because EA's PR certainly won't see it here (to what degree they listen to their PR is variable though, but it definitely won't reach anyone important here on this site)

*le snip

Evidence

Spoiler

" The non-personally identifiable information that EA
collects includes technical and related information that identifies your computer
(including the Internet Protocol Address) and operating system, as well as
information about your Application usage (including but not limited to successful
installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware." -Origin Eula

"The non-personal information collected may include demographic information including gender, age, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including unique device IDs or other device identifiers, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance." -General Ea data collection policy

So heres the information they can take
-Ip
-Operating System
-Hardware Specifications
-Peripheral Devices
-Installed Software
-Software Usage
-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
-General Origin Feature Usage

So yeah, check the facts first.

EDIT: Forgot to respond to the Steam bit. Yes Steam takes Hardware and Software Information. However, this is nothing like what Origin is doing. With Origin you are forced into it. If you want to play any EA games on PC you have to allow EA to look at the above information. With Steam it is in the form of an optional monthly survey. You can use Steam and unless you agree to the monthly survey as well then you don't have to give them any of your information.

So yea, you just proved my point, my point isn't that they gather data, this was a given AGES ago, everyone knoes Origin, as well as most other programs gather data. However here is a big diffrence between when you say "They take ALL of your hardware and software information." Which is bias talk translating to "They steal ALL the personal info on my machine". No, just no, look at what you posted. All the info you posted on what they take is fairly regular information for data gathering. They may take on a whole a bit more then some programs, but it still isn't that much. Under that EULA they can't keylog you or steal personal files, they can only look at what programs you have.

-Ip
*Needed for basically anything web based

-Operating System
*Required for the software to run

-Hardware Specifications
*Basic info needed for running software, extra data gathered on this is generally
unimportant, NEVER heard anyone complain about this

-Peripheral Devices
*Probably the most intrusive thing on here, they can see what type of keyboard or mouse you are using, or if you use a iPhone or Android (Note they say "unique device IDs or other device identifiers" not info on the device)

-Installed Software
*Installed software, at least to me this isn't intrusive, Steam does this, never bothered me

-Software Usage
*So they can see you install/uninstall software, and they can see if you like to use Chrome or Firefox, this isn't to large of a difference from installed software, except they get to know if those programs you installed are actually being used (as opposed to say if you had installed Steam, but never use it, they'd be able to tell the difference) because looking at just what is installed doesn't tell them much in terms of demographic software use.

-General Account Information (That's a given no matter what program)
-Network Media Access Control Address and Connection
*More network information
-General Origin Feature Usage

Again what is this other software that collects as many details about your software setup as Origin does, as a mandatory part of using that software. Please list them with evidence for your assertions.

And no I don't have Origin installed and won't use it while it works the way it does.

And no, it is not a pointless thread as people still are unable to grasp the basic concept that Origin is not the same as Steam for taking data. Yes 'taking', as I don't want them to have it but they did anyway. As long as people thing the two are the same from a privacy point of view, this thread is needed....

So quit railing against Origin in particular and start fighting EULA's in general. That's the real villain here: "contracts" that the user is forced to accept after money has already changed hands, which add additional stipulations that weren't there at the time of sale. Because until those are made illegal, we're going to keep getting bullshit like this.

 

[evilneko]

I probably should have weighed in on this earlier, since I was the one posting about how Steam does the same thing a few months back, but here it is: Steam does the same thing, and the only way you have a case here is if you actually refuse to participate in the steam hardware survey. The vast majority of Steam users, including the ones who were complaining about Origin, participate in that survey. What's more, my point was not that Origin was magically good, but that Steam is actually just as bad. Congratulations for realizing that the origin EULA is bs, but you lose points for missing the fact that they /all/ are bs, not to mention only "legal" on the technicality that the judges who ruled them so are apparently confused by the fact that it's digital; this was tried with both books and records about a century ago, and it was ruled illegal in both cases. Literally the only difference is the fact that this is a new technology, and the judges are old coots.

Steam doesn't rifle through German tax returns!