Sony Reserves Right to "Monitor and Record" PS4 User Communication

[Church185]

Being an owner of the infrastructure does not give one free-reign to violate local, state, and national laws.

Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT&T

Additionally, here's some information on the laws regarding the recording of audio and video:

http://www.rcfp.org/first-amendment-handbook/introduction-recording-state-hidden-camera-statutes

http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/electronic-surveillance-laws.aspx

And cases where such laws have been used against citizens:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/12/police_fight_cellphone_recordings/

From the EULA:

?Yes but we can?t monitor all PSN activity and we make no commitment to do so. However, we reserve the right in our sole discretion to monitor and record any or all of your PSN activity and to remove any of your UGM at our sole discretion, without further notice to you.

?Your use of PSN and our community features may be recorded and collected by us or sent to us by other users as described in 13.1. Any information collected in this way, for example, your UGM, the content of your voice and text communications, video of your gameplay, the time and location of your activities, and your name, your PSN Online ID and IP address, may be used by us or our affiliated companies to enforce these Terms and the SEN Terms of Service, to comply with the law, to protect our rights and those of our licensors and users, and to protect the personal safety of our employees and users.

?This information may be passed to the police or other appropriate authorities. By accepting these Software Usage Terms, you expressly consent to this.?

Meaning you either agree to be monitored or you don't use their software. It's a contract that you agree to, meaning everything you posted above is irrelevant.

 

[TexDangerfield]

It's cool it's Sony these guys can do no wrong!....................right?

 

[Church185]

That does indeed help Sony circumvent even two-party permission for audio recording.

Excellent retort. I concede the point.

Whether it is right for a company to do things like this is certainly up for debate, but I just wanted to make it known that what they are doing isn't illegal. Thank you for debating with me in a respectable manner.

Is it morally questionable? A lot of people think so.

Are they breaking any laws? No, not really.

 

[Church185]

Don't know what it's like in the states, but in Europe that thing has about as much legal weight as a dead snail IIRC.

Which is funny because that is from the EU's EULA. The NA EULA hasn't been officially released yet.

 

[Church185]

Why do they bother with it then? Why waste time on something that isn't even legal to begin with? I honestly don't get it.

I'm not sure, but I think the portion of EULA's that EU courts ignore is everything about ownership. I remember there being a lot of talk about being able to return digital goods in the EU being a consumer rights victory (which I agree with, to an extent).

I'm no expert, but I don't think there is a precedent yet about agreeing to be monitored in a closed service, so that may still be allowed. Then again, Germany's initial reaction to the Xbox One may need to be taken into consideration...

That's just a guess on my part. *shrugs*

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Sounds like a standard "we're not going to do this, but we reserve the right to if we do need to" clause. It would take so much manpower to actually monitor all of what's being said through. Presumably it's so that they can easily cut through red tape if they need to remove something against the law.

But yeah, take it into consideration.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Yet when Microsoft did it everyone just shat all over them. Im with you, privacy is gone and no amount of asking will change it, people will just have to deal with it and not post their shit online if they want some semblence of privacy.

Microsoft is a little different. I don't mind if companies have the ability to monitor communications, it becomes really handy when making a case against someone who may be harassing you. In that instance, them monitoring communications is purely for my benefit. The forced camera, and talk of targeted advertising through recognized brands the Kinect could see is where I start to get uneasy. I'm not even wading into NSA conspiracy theory stuff here, the fact that Microsoft could monitor what I was doing outside of their ecosystem just seemed wrong. Not something I want to be a part of.

So we've sunk so low as to say "Well I prefer this method of spying over this method of spying". Spying is spying. Microsoft can see what shirt you're wearing, Sony can see who your girlfriend is. Either way they both seem authoritarian to me. Both could be something out of 1984.

How about no spying?

 

[Church185]

So we've sunk so low as to say "Well I prefer this method of spying over this method of spying". Spying is spying. Microsoft can see what shirt you're wearing, Sony can see who your girlfriend is. Either way they both seem authoritarian to me. Both could be something out of 1984.

How about no spying?

How does knowing who I'm romantically involved with, or them knowing that I told my buddy GG after a BF4 match, benefit Sony in any way? I'm glad that they may have a record of someone harassing me on the service. Means that person might get banned that much faster, and the community might be a little more pleasant. I don't see any downside to this.

I don't think authoritarian means what you think it means...

 

[Battenberg]

Whilst I know this will rarely, if ever, be utilised I still find the very prospect of it being built in incredibly objectionable. It's like YouTube's genius idea to give big companies the ability to shut down videos with one click *cough Microsoft* except that this has the potential to be misused much more seriously.

 

[faefrost]

This is once again much ado about nothing. Pretty much any online service these days will have similar understandings. This is part of their enforcement mechanism to stop things like cyber stalking and criminal activity over their networks. Things like "real world threats made over PSN will be handed off to appropriate police agencies." I don't think we have any reasonable expectation of total privacy of voice or text communication over a privately owned gaming network. The trick is that we have assurances that any such data will be used exclusively for TOS and law enforcement purposes, and not direct targeted marketing.

 

[crepesack]

Isn't this the same as facebook or other messaging services recording conversations? I'm pretty sure this is SOP for messaging services that don't advertise on the basis of anonymity and "untraceable" conversations.

It's probably a security system put in place so they can actually catch bad people.

Actually most games with built in conversation record your conversations. Why? So we can ban them and find out if they're doing illicit things. This is nothing new at all.

 

[sXeth]

This is hardly new. Even going back to the Billboard dial in days, or IRC networks, the server controllers have always been able to monitor stuff.

 

[floppylobster]

As they should. You don't put a bunch of five-year-olds in a room without a babysitter or minder. You're going over to their house, they have every right to monitor you.

 

[The White Hunter]

From the EULA:

?Yes but we can?t monitor all PSN activity and we make no commitment to do so. However, we reserve the right in our sole discretion to monitor and record any or all of your PSN activity and to remove any of your UGM at our sole discretion, without further notice to you.

?Your use of PSN and our community features may be recorded and collected by us or sent to us by other users as described in 13.1. Any information collected in this way, for example, your UGM, the content of your voice and text communications, video of your gameplay, the time and location of your activities, and your name, your PSN Online ID and IP address, may be used by us or our affiliated companies to enforce these Terms and the SEN Terms of Service, to comply with the law, to protect our rights and those of our licensors and users, and to protect the personal safety of our employees and users.

?This information may be passed to the police or other appropriate authorities. By accepting these Software Usage Terms, you expressly consent to this.?

Meaning you either agree to be monitored or you don't use their software. It's a contract that you agree to, meaning everything you posted above is irrelevant.

Don't know what it's like in the states, but in Europe that thing has about as much legal weight as a dead snail IIRC.

Within the European Union EULA's aren't worth shit and don't hold up in court, basically privacy is considered a right and agreeing to a EULA in such a way as using the software does not supersede said rights.

So yeah.

Dead snail.

 

[Lightknight]

Uh... yeah? This was already happening. Someone reports flamebaiting and illegal threats, how do you think a person's account gets banned? Mods review the game and communication in question and make the decision.

I'm not sure I'm familiar with any such service that doesn't reserve this right.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Seriously, monitoring text and voice comments? How do they even know the difference between friendly banter and actual threats?

How 'bout, the latter gets reported while the former doesn't. That's how I'd handle it, at least: record everything so it can be used as evidence, but don't look at it until someone speaks up and says something wrong went down. Sony's approach will probably involve more ignoring reports because hiring a decent moderation staff costs money.