EA denies spying on Battlefield 3 Origin users

By Tom Phillips Published 1 November, 2011

German gamers claim service breaks privacy laws.

EA has refuted claims from German gamers that download service Origin - required to play Battlefield 3 on PC - spies on users' computer activity and could potentially break the country's privacy laws.

German Origin users reacted in anger after images surfaced online appearing to show the service accessing external programs and data synced from mobile phones.

Additionally, the Spiegel newspaper printed a list of items from Origin's license agreement it reported could violate German privacy law.

Those items included the right for EA to access other EA products without notifying the user, plus the right for EA and unnamed "partners" to "gather, use, store and transmit technical and related information" on "IP addresses, usage data, software, equipment, software usage and existing hardware peripherals" according to the terms of use and for "marketing purposes".

German Battlefield 3 gamers have responded by returning shop-bought copies of the game and bombing Battlefield 3's Amazon.de user rating, reducing it to one of the worst on the site.

Unusually, German retailers Media Markt and Saturn took the step of refunding used editions of Battlefield 3, even after their PC keys had been redeemed.

EA Germany has now updated Origin's terms of service in response to the furore and issued a statement denying its software was spyware.

"We have updated the End User License Agreement of Origin, in the interests of our players to create more clarity," EA Germany announced in a statement yesterday. "Origin is not spyware. Neither do we use nor install spyware on the PCs of users.

"We do not have access to information such as pictures, documents or personal data, which have nothing to do with the execution of the Origin program on the system of the player, neither will they be collected by us.

"EA takes the privacy of its users very seriously. We have taken every precaution to protect the personal and anonymous user data collected."

Origin's license agreement matches "industry-standard privacy policies", EA stressed.

But "where necessary, we will of course work together with the relevant Government agencies to ensure that our policies are and remain legally compliant."

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About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 4 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • nimzy #1 4 months ago

    If Origin's license agreement matches "industry-standard privacy policies" then industry-standard privacy policies need to change.

  • onlynapkin #2 4 months ago

    Once again, EA backtracks when a media shitstorm exposes their dark underbelly.

    Remember the 'user banned from forum, can't play single player games' time?

    Yeah.

    I dislike Origin on principle, because the company running it has a track record that involves making more money while harming its consumers.

  • danidrums #3 4 months ago

    "where necessary, we will of course work together with the relevant Government agencies to ensure that our policies are and remain legally compliant."

    Yeah right, they'll let you go as long as you provide them with that same stolen info. EA herp derp...

  • paulf #4 4 months ago

    does anyone apart from lawyers ever read an EULA ?

  • bobfish09 #5 4 months ago

    Steam has something similiar in its EULA about collecting technical and usage data from users.

    Nothing surprising here really.

  • jonbwfc #6 4 months ago

    we will of course work together with the relevant Government agencies to ensure that our policies are and remain legally compliant.

    Funny, I thought you had to do that whether Government agencies were helping you or not.

  • tiddex #7 4 months ago

    Actually there was a part in the EULA allowing EA to scan your pc for pirated software.

  • gpanoiah #8 4 months ago

    Unusually, German retailers Media Markt and Saturn took the step of refunding used editions of Battlefield 3, even after their PC keys had been redeemed
    LOL This explains everything !

  • DeeEss #9 4 months ago

    @bobfish09 Steam has the option to opt out of it. Origin does not.

  • MattEdWithCheese #10 4 months ago

    Well the old ToS did make it sound like glorified malware... Oh EA you were doing well for a while...

  • deadstoned #11 4 months ago

    I know most Germans are upset with this picture:
    http://s1.directupload.net/images/111028/fglehhsj.jpg
    It shows Origin going through someones taxes. I don't blame them for being upset.

    Mod Edit: Changed to link as pic was hueg.

    Edit by user: Sorry, thought I should leave the image in case it was a bug as I thought images auto-re-sized.
    Edited by 2 at 01/11/11 @ 23:52

  • Rack #12 4 months ago

    EA need to watch themselves, it's all very well responding to these claims once they've been made public but it will be a dead giveaway when they're responding to emails that haven't been sent out yet...

  • Svalbaard #13 4 months ago

    So they change the wording on a piece of paper and that makes it all ok does it?

  • orpheus #14 4 months ago

    The Origin license agreement is why I will never purchase BF3 for PC until it comes to Steam or is decoupled from the Origin platform.

    This was an appalling privacy invasion when it was first announced, prior to release. I'd be very interested to know exactly how the wording has changed, and if it's actually made any practical difference in the data they can access.

  • Neil__ #15 4 months ago

    Lesson learned from this.
    If you have installed any pirated EA games then you need to keep pirating their games from now on.
    If you dare buy any of their products they will know and fuck your shit up.

  • 00.00.01 #16 4 months ago

    The law is the law, i do understand that, and I'd be pissed off as well but then....read the EULA of consoles...the amount of info they send back when booted up is impressive too.
    I mean, why does Sony/PS3 need to know on what type of telly I run my games? Or which brand of 7.1 system I've got hooked up....

  • Der_tolle_Emil #17 4 months ago

    I actually read the EULA before installing Origin and ended up not doing so. To be totally honest though the screenshots floating around showing Origin going through files on your hard disk are not really that bad - the screenshot posted in this thread for example is totally harmless*. Origin simply queries the files, there is not a single read operation, ie. it does not open the files to get content (let alone there not being a single TCP SEND entry) - it just goes through the directories to see what's there.

    Steam (the one digital platform we all love so much) does the exact same thing: http://store.s teampowered.com/hwsurvey . Now, I'm not sure if you have to opt-in to take part in this survey but if you did opt-in you would get the exact same logs using tools like Process Monitor. How do you think Steam knows what software you have installed?

    I don't like Origin for my own personal reasons but I also think the treatment it is getting at the moment is a bit unfair. So far all the "facts" I have seen floating around that "prove" that Origin is spying on users are all methods tons of other developers/publishers have been using in their software for years. As I said, open up Steam (Valve Anti Cheat), World of Warcraft (Blizzard Warden) or any other PunkBuster enabled game and you will find the same file system activity with tools like Process Monitor.

    I am not saying that it is OK to scan your entire hard drive - whether someone agrees with that is up to them but it is definitely not the ultimate evil that people are making it out to be - and especially not something that is exclusive to Origin.

    edit: typos
    Edited by 1 at 01/11/11 @ 17:17

  • Ahskay #18 4 months ago

    Is that why Origin was sniffing around in account files that had nothing to do with E.A?

    I never trusted Origin and if that means i miss BF3 because of that, so be it.

  • marmaduke #19 4 months ago

    @Der_tolle_Emil - the Valve survey is opt-in and the data collected was made anonymous. Well, assuming they were telling the truth.

    I think people are mostly angry that EA just enabled it by default, and also by stealth. People don't know what they're going to do with the data- and this is worrying because as that Valve survey points out, around 30 - 35% of PC owners running Steam also own a BitTorrent client...

  • Der_tolle_Emil #20 4 months ago

    @marmaduke: I think people are mostly angry that EA just enabled it by default, and also by stealth.

    I absolutely agree. Why hide it? I'm sure if they were open about it there would have been much less of an outrage. Even worse though if you cannot opt-out. Usage statistics should be optional, however, if the scan is part of anti cheating measures (which it probably is) then it is (sadly) a necessity.

    In the end though I guess it does make sense that gamers are really questioning Origin's behavior. nimzy's first comment here really nails it: If Origin's license agreement matches "industry-standard privacy policies" then industry-standard privacy policies need to change.

  • Boki #21 4 months ago

    Why do they only update the German EULA? What about the rest of us?

  • danidrums #22 4 months ago

    ...and this is old, two months ago we knew about this. It's only out in EG because EA made a response.

  • ff82003 #23 4 months ago

    Personally, i actually don't give a fuck if Origin spy on my computer, missing out on a good game cuz of this is just plain stupid.

  • DwarfyP #24 4 months ago

    They already proved on other sites that the images that were posted were McAfee virus checker with its name changed to ORIGIN using pretty basic Windows tools you can download from Microsoft themself.

  • FrontlineKhan. #25 4 months ago

    @marmaduke

    All good points, I'd just like to add that perfectly legitimate things are distributed by torrent, so the presence of torrent client isn't of itself indicative of anything dodgy.

    I do understand what you're saying though.

  • GI-Joel #26 4 months ago

    The more I start questioning personal data storage and "cloud" storage the more I worry about what info is being collected by my everyday routines with regards to personal data.
    It won't be long before my toilet has a microchip in it collecting data about my shit size and whether it floats or not.

  • danidrums #27 4 months ago

    @ff82003 The problem here is not just letting Origin or any program having a look into our hard-drives. The bottom line is: if we let them do these little things, next thing you know, you have a camera built into your tv or toaster to monitor your reactions to certain tv channels or types of sandwiches. And people will love it. Remember years ago, no one could easily locate you? Well, today, most of us can't spend 1 hour without our cellphones. Just an example.

  • Dapper_Dan #28 4 months ago

    @GI-Joel
    There's been toilets like that in Japan for decades. It analyses your turd and alerts medical authorities if it thinks there's something wrong.
    Edited by 2 at 02/11/11 @ 02:00

  • Ithilkir #29 4 months ago

    I see it as someone staring through your windows at your house. While they might not be actually going into your house uninvited and it may be harmless it's still very rude and very much an uncomfortable feeling. At least at home you can close your curtains to avoid this and in most countries there is a certain amount of privacy law to protect you.

    What EA is basically saying now is that it will look at everything it wants to and make a note of it and you can't close the curtains to protect your privacy.

    I allow Steam to look for the survey because it ASKED ME. Origin has just elbowed it's way to the front and is peeking with no regards to the people it's monitoring. My easy solution is not to use Origin and I'm glad I don't. I never will not regardless of what game comes out. Sorry EA, we're people, not commoditys.

  • bad09 #30 4 months ago

    Well I thought the spyware stuff was tinfoil hat stuff but with clear evidence of it going through someones taxes it's hard to argue.

    I'm not gonna uninstall it because as it was EADM before I've got about 8 or 9 games on it and I'd lose those but I certainly will never use it to buy products and will ignore any games demanding use of it (bye bye Battlefield 3!).

    Awful and sad mess, I've been saying it for a while with regard to their anti-consumer DRMs laws need to be passed to protect consumers from this increasingly hostile, arrogant, selfish, uncaring, anti-consumer, anti-privacy and just plain cuntbag industry. Rather than pointlessly putting bad reviews on Amazon maybe people should start addressing the issue with their governments. The more people complaining the better the chance governments will work for the people not software corporations.
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/11 @ 09:33

  • bionicbeagle #31 4 months ago

    But do people understand what the picture is actually showing? Or are they just jumping to paranoid conclusions?

    It's showing an application iterating a directory tree. At no point does it read any data from the files. If it did, you would see ReadFile calls.

    Also, in WIndows you never know who is executing code in a process. It's common to see system extensions which inject themselves in all Windows processes, to extend file dialogs etc so there's no guarantee that this is actually Origin code either. It's also common for malware to inject themselves into other processes to make their activity look like regular system activity.

    It's a bit like showing a photo of a guy looking at a bank and then claiming that he's planning a robbery. If you want to get outraged it's probably good if you actually understand what you're looking at, and if you want to claim that it's spying on you, you should probably come up with some proper evidence.

  • Trigg3rHippie #32 4 months ago

    Have a look at the agreement in Steam, it's pretty similar to this. Such as Windows'. So you'll get rid of Steam as well? How about selling your PC?

  • GI-Joel #33 4 months ago

    @Dapper_Dan Its clear I need to go back under my rock then ...