A few days ago, Nerd Approved wrote an article outlining EA’s decision to add spyware to Battlefield 2142. EA has now clarified the situation and, not surprisingly, I’m even more pissed off than before.
The following is a statement from EA:
“The advertising program in Battlefield 2142 does not access any files which are not directly related to the game. It does not capture personal data such as cookies, account login detail, or surfing history.
BF 2142 delivers ads by region. The advertising system uses a player’s IP address to determine the region of the player, assisting to serve the appropriate ads by region and language. For instance, a player in Paris might be presented with ads in French. The information collected will not be repurposed for other uses.
Battlefield 2142 also tracks “impression data” related to in-game advertisements: location of a billboard in the game, brand advertised, duration of advertisement impression, etc. This information is used to help advertisers qualify the reach of a given advertisement.”
The actual letter contained in the game (pictured above) goes on to say:
“IF YOU DO NOT WANT IGA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE OR TRANSMIT THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, DO NOT INSTALL OR PLAY THE SOFTWARE ON ANY PLATFORM THAT IS USED TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET.”
Is it time to boycott Battlefield 2142 and EA? The spyware issue is just part of the problem. The bigger reason is that they have been churning out crap recently in an attempt to squeeze every last dime out of us. I mean, even Battlefield 2142 looks like they just re-skinned Battlefield 2 and threw it at us.
