This isn't just like the (debunked) concerns from a few years ago, it is pretty much exactly the same thing. You can easily tell that the investigator has no real investigative knowledge because s/he doesn't even know that registry entries are rot-13ed by Windows, not by Origin.
For the browser, there is actually a legitimate reason for them wanting to know which one(s) you have installed, while possibly not the biggest game around here Battlefield has browser based matchmaking requiring (iirc) a plugin, and runs via Origin.
Plenty of reasons not to like clients on principle and I'd prefer no clients at all, but Origin is actually more benign than Steam on the privacy front. Valve specifically excludes 3rd parties from its privacy policy (so they can do anything they want, including potentially collecting info for Valve), EA requires 3rd parties to follow theirs, and have a specific limitation that they will not share information without your express consent. And, of course, Steam's client will quite happily scan your entire hard drive on some actions- add a non steam game- and was scanning which websites were being visited until caught doing so. They claimed it was for anti cheating, but frankly they would say that even if it wasn't.
For the browser, there is actually a legitimate reason for them wanting to know which one(s) you have installed, while possibly not the biggest game around here Battlefield has browser based matchmaking requiring (iirc) a plugin, and runs via Origin.
Plenty of reasons not to like clients on principle and I'd prefer no clients at all, but Origin is actually more benign than Steam on the privacy front. Valve specifically excludes 3rd parties from its privacy policy (so they can do anything they want, including potentially collecting info for Valve), EA requires 3rd parties to follow theirs, and have a specific limitation that they will not share information without your express consent. And, of course, Steam's client will quite happily scan your entire hard drive on some actions- add a non steam game- and was scanning which websites were being visited until caught doing so. They claimed it was for anti cheating, but frankly they would say that even if it wasn't.
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2008
- Messages
- 193
