Concerns about the new EULA

What can I say? As soon as I read that part, I was angry. I didn't want to be alone, and I figured "who else reads EULAs?" So I wanted to point it out.

I posted it as soon as *I* found out about it. The timing was based on the timing of my knowledge, there is no sinister reason for the timing of my post. I would have made it Monday afternoon if I found out then.

I can understand the whole bot and other exploits concern, however no company or individual can force you to allow them access into your system which from what I've read so far is exactly what the EULA is stating *And yes in print its liable and legally unjust as the law takes printed litigation word for word* This can never be enforced and any and every lawsuit made by NCSoft on these grounds would fail simply due to the Internet Privacy Act which was signed and passed by Former US President Bill Clinton. The privacy act clearly states that no company or individual has the right to enter your computer system without express permission from the system owner. Any attempt to do so without written, signed, and dated consent is a violation of this law. So NCSoft purely putting it into a EULA is unenforceable and may actually result in several litigation's being filed against the company. (Not saying it will but that it could)

The only actual legal way for them to do what they are trying to do is from their end and must be done on the server.

I suggest everyone here read up on the Internet Privacy Act you might learn a thing or two.

Again I'm not discrediting NCSoft for wanting to stop exploits and other hacks, I am merely stating that they cannot force you to give them access to your system just because you play their game and as I said before any litigation the company might file against a individual would not hold up in any court.

NCsoft may conduct such monitoring, including but not limited to monitoring in-Game communications and Message Boards provided by NCsoft as well as third-party Message Boards and the like.

NCSOFT HAS THE RIGHT, BUT NO OBLIGATION, TO MONITOR OPERATION OF ANY SERVICE, CONTENT OR SOFTWARE AT ANY TIME

The rest of the EULA is pretty standard but the above two sentences does raise a few alarms with me.

1. How would they monitor third party message boards? Would they contact the administrators of those websites, give them credentials and ask them to release account registration information attached to a particular user name? That information would be defined to be private and non-public information.

2. The second sentence is rather broad in scope. What if NCSoft decided to include a spyware (however benign) in an game update in order to facilitate their monitoring of the users system operation? Perhaps even searching for unauthorized executable files (or bot executables) running in the background?

Either of those *might* run afoul of the federal privacy laws as well as California's "Shine the Light" law, though given the verbiage used in this case, it can realistically fall into a gray area. It is more likely that these sections of the EULA are actually exploiting the lack of a comprehensive U.S. law that is specifically designed to address internet privacy and non-ISP related electronic communications. Still, NCSoft needs to be very careful in what approaches they take as I'm sure a lot of people have multiple layers of security protections on their computer as well as constantly monitoring their system process for foreign executables. I am such a person myself as I am ultra paranoid about internet security due to the potential for identity theft. If such spyware accidentally captures the data stream from browsing the web while the game is still running in the background, the protection offered by the EULA would be null and void since that is unrelated to the operation and enforcement of game rules. Well, whatever the legal case, it would still be a PR nightmare if uncovered.

Can we have a serious debate without name calling and insults? We're all mature individuals here, right?