Concerns about the new EULA

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Everyone knows that's Xavier. He used to make up pet names for him and everything.

Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser

True guy love is only formed when there is reciprocation.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

Like Clark/Bruce, or Hal/Kilowog.

Originally Posted by UberGuy

No, that's an oversimplification of something that, yes, is not very complicated, but by oversimplifying it you're creating a kind of strawman position.

Look, I want to play their game, because I like their game. I don't want the terms playing their games to allow them to do things I don't want them to have the right to do. Giving up your protections on the basis that no one is currently abusing that access is just asking later people to take advantage of the protections you gave away.

I understand fully that, say, for NCSoft to use these EULA terms to install a keylogger, find my banking login, and steal money from my bank account is clearly illegal. The EULA would not even begin to protect them if they did something like that. On the other hand, using their malware/bot detector or some diagnostic tool to find every piece of software I have installed on my PC or my browsing history is not illegal, but it's an invasion of my privacy.

Even if they do nothing overtly illegal with information gleaned from my PC, they could potentially sell it to folks who desperately want to try to monetize such personal data. Zwil tells us they would never do such a thing, and I take his word for that, but the EULA does not disallow it, so someone later on could change NCSoft's direction regarding it. Such data, once obtained, is theirs forever. Even if they don't sell it, it might be stored on an unsecure server and then stolen by hackers, to be sprayed all over the internet. See Sony's recent joys.

To which some posters here will probably be all like "oh, NOES! Not a list of installed software!" And for most people, that's probably a fair (if IMO naive) response. Preserving privacy is often about a lot of "what if" scenarios, and its very easy to dismiss the whole bag if you think none of those "what ifs" happen to apply to you. I like to err on the side of safety, and greater privacy. Maybe I don't know what the "what ifs" that apply to me actually all are. Maybe there are other people out there with more applicable "what ifs" than me. If I don't give away my right to privacy, I don't have to think of everything, and if my privacy is invaded, I can fall back on "hey, I never gave you permission to do that!"

I think people who live in wealthy, safe countries are often complacent about their privacy (among other things) and waive control of it too readily. There's a notion often trotted out that you have to live in a cave with no electricty to try and be smart about this stuff, but that's not true at all. But keeping on top of it takes effort, and people are lazy. Giving up our protections is convenient, unfortunately.

Because, as I've explained, I mostly trust them to not do what's overtly illegal, but not everything that is both legal and permitted under the EULA is something I want to grant them permission to do. Something doesn't have to be illegal or somehow overtly evil for me to not want them to do it. This EULA grants them permission to perform extraordinary, non-illegal invasions of privacy. If they later change their minds about how they use this permission, they're protected by the EULA unless they actually do violate a law.

I don't want to give them such permission, but I want to play the game. Because I want to play their game, I don't want to have to choose to not play the game in order to avoid granting them this permission. Therefore, I find it preferable to have a less onerous EULA than to stop playing the game. Is that really so hard to grasp?

If this type of privacy discussion is foreign to folks reading this, do some searching about user user website tracking and the debates around it. There are people who object to the notion of companies like Google (and many others) tracking uniquely identifiable individuals across the websites they visit. Bear in mind, these systems don't directly identify the users; they say "user X went to foo.org and bar.com", not "user X is John Smith". But it turns out that determined people are really good at using that sort of data to figure out that user X is John Smith. There's enough concern about this sort of thing that laws are being enacted around being able to opt out of this sort of tracking in the EU, and laws like that are at least being discussed in the US.

Now, in light of people not wanting their website visitation patterns to be tracked by third parties, even if the tracking data cannot (directly) identify the person being tracked, do you really think it's that big a stretch that people would not want to permit a service provider open access to their computer's memory and storage?

Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser

Just because Xavier loves him doesn't make it guy love. True guy love is only formed when there is reciprocation.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser

Yeah, but posting it on Saturday would mean he'd miss posting it on September 11th for Maximum Never Forget-ness.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

I wasn't being totally serious - again

Originally Posted by Westley

Apparently according to Zwill, I can post until my paid time has elapsed. Yay?

Originally Posted by The_Foo

Man, what happened to classy Taser? Why you gotta be all insulty?

Originally Posted by DarkGob

This thread was at 10 pages before I left for work this morning. It is now at 16 pages.

Yeah, I'm out.

Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser

4 pages about Superhero Guy Love. 2 about pro wrestling.

Originally Posted by The_Foo

I'm pretty sure you were. I can tell when people are being serious.

Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser

4 pages about Superhero Guy Love. 2 about homoeroticism in wrestling.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

I'm pretty sure I know my own intentions better than anyone else

Originally Posted by CactusBrawler

You know what?

I can't even agree to the EULA...

Am I in a fit mental state to do so?

I dunno sometimes I think I must be mad, since I don't have a psychologist report stating I'm sane, can I prove that I'm fit enough to agree to the EULA? Will Paragon pay for an evaulation?

Originally Posted by Smersh

That isn't even close to the way that works.