Do you trust EA with your data?
You would think that while playing your favourite game on Xbox Live, all of your private data would be safe, with nobody knowing sensitive information such as your credit card details, name or address. Think again. Giant Electronic Arts seems to be a bit of a dark horse where privacy is concerned.
You know the drill, after setting up your Xbox 360 for online play, you just accept the terms and conditions/privacy policy and continue. I mean, the pages go on and on, and it’d just be a waste of valuable playing time to actually read it. However, after reading EA‘s privacy policy, we might take a second thought before agreeing to something like this again, and we think you will too. Have a dose of just a section of EA’s privacy policy, which you accept by playing an EA game on Xbox Live:
If you sign up to play EA games through MicrosoftÂ’s Xbox Live Service, Microsoft will provide your Xbox Live user account information to EA so that we can establish an EA Online account for you. You need an EA Online account to play EAÂ’s Xbox Live titles. By signing up to play EA’s Xbox Live titles, you agree that Microsoft can transfer your user account information to EA.
Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, e-mail address, phone number, mobile number, home address, birth date and credit card information. In addition, we may collect demographic information such as gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, Internet IP address and connection, information about online activity such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths and other data that you may provide in surveys or online profiles, for instance. We may combine demographic information with personal information.
This invasion of privacy is certainly uncalled for, and as Bill Harris from Dubious Quality correctly points out, is this even legal? By accepting this privacy policy EA have the right to collect information about your IP address, computer, credit card etc and put all of this information together. It is true that EA might not do this, but the fact is they can. Take heed: read everything before you agree to it.
Via Dubious Quality
You would think that while playing your favourite game on Xbox Live, all of your private data would be safe, with nobody knowing sensitive information such as your credit card details, name or address. Think again. Giant Electronic Arts seems to be a bit of a dark horse where privacy is concerned.
You know the drill, after setting up your Xbox 360 for online play, you just accept the terms and conditions/privacy policy and continue. I mean, the pages go on and on, and it’d just be a waste of valuable playing time to actually read it. However, after reading EA‘s privacy policy, we might take a second thought before agreeing to something like this again, and we think you will too. Have a dose of just a section of EA’s privacy policy, which you accept by playing an EA game on Xbox Live:
If you sign up to play EA games through MicrosoftÂ’s Xbox Live Service, Microsoft will provide your Xbox Live user account information to EA so that we can establish an EA Online account for you. You need an EA Online account to play EAÂ’s Xbox Live titles. By signing up to play EA’s Xbox Live titles, you agree that Microsoft can transfer your user account information to EA.
Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, e-mail address, phone number, mobile number, home address, birth date and credit card information. In addition, we may collect demographic information such as gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, Internet IP address and connection, information about online activity such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths and other data that you may provide in surveys or online profiles, for instance. We may combine demographic information with personal information.
This invasion of privacy is certainly uncalled for, and as Bill Harris from Dubious Quality correctly points out, is this even legal? By accepting this privacy policy EA have the right to collect information about your IP address, computer, credit card etc and put all of this information together. It is true that EA might not do this, but the fact is they can. Take heed: read everything before you agree to it.
Via Dubious Quality
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