In Corporations We Trust

What do you do in a world where there is no transparency? If we weren't involved in doing bad things then we really have nothing to hide. This is often the line sprouted by Corporations and Governments when they are looking to take away basic civil liberties from people. However, why does this not work the other way? In a move which was praised by the gaming community Ubisoft dropped the use of Starforce copy protection on their games. Only to replace it allegedly with a spyware tool called SendStats.exe on the Heroes of Might and Magic 5 game release. Sendstats sends encrypted information to a Ubisoft server collecting data about the computer inwhich it is installed. This is no different from the SonyGate scandal which rocked the world earlier this year and has cost Sony millions of dollars. It was only discovered by a user and never revealed prior by Sony until it was made public that the software was, in fact, spyware (a direct derivative of actual spyware software). How does the phrase, "If they are not doing bad things then they have nothing to hide," applies directly here, however, Ubisoft hasn't been over forthcoming with what they are doing.

The official response to gamer's concerns on forums has been, "Heroes 5 is collecting anonymous data that is being sent back to Ubisoft. This is done to help balancing the game - as you can imagine, even a lengthy beta test (the closed betatest lasted four months) is still less game sessions a week of playing after the release. So we keep track of the time spent in a mission, in a battle, battle results, skills use, etc." While it is not new for information to be collected about game play habits or CD Key information which Half Life 2 and Doom 3 performing these functions. If this is all they are they are collecting then what is the need to encrypt the information? If that is all they want then why hide it from others? If they wanted to tailor the game through balancing various aspects of it then why don't they read their own forums and discuss the game with gamers rather than allegedly installing insidious software on their systems to do it surreptitiously?

Ubisoft goes on to say, "This is a Ubisoft technology sending data to Ubisoft servers, and it is covered in the EULA displayed during the installation." The EULA says that they will collect data, but not how they collect the data. So, how does this make the use of invisible and encrypted software and information right? "We have used this during the whole beta test phase. If you are comfortable with this data tracking, you should simply prevent it with your firewall - I wouldn't imagine a PC User surfing the web without one!" The software doesn't show up in windows firewall for you to block it. Furthermore, it is alleged that even if you do manually block the software your firewall will continue to prompt you about its blocking after several minutes, interrupting your gameplay.

The thing that irritates me the most about all of this is that the large corporations complain about people using technology to violate their copyright ownership and then say that the technology is not capable of providing real alternatives for online distribution. But when it comes to spying on their customers through the use of spyware type applications then the corporations are more than happy to give the technology a go. What a load of bullshit and what a backwards world we live in. As far as I am concerned consumers should be jumping up and down at the corporations and threatening them where they can hurt them the most, by not buying their products. If people were to completely boycott Sony and Ubisoft products because they have been allegedly involved in insidious activities to collect information or run applications on their computers then do you think they would think twice about doing it again? These companies are more than happy to take your hard earned money from you and then proceed to violate your trust. Then people should hurt them with what they care about most - making money. Restrict their ability to make money by boycotting their products. They will then think twice about being shifty.

The other thing is that with all of the intelligent people in the world who fiddle around with computers how long do they think they can get away with these things without getting caught? How stupid are the people who work for these corporations who think it is a good idea to do this? Cause the fact of the matter is that there is someone smarter out there who will catch them out. I think consumers should vote with their wallets and using their combined purchasing power to hurt these companies with the thing that they love the most (and they LOVE money, money greed and power are the things that they lust for) hurt their ability to make a profit.