Post date: Oct 28, 2013 12:18:01 PM
While I never fell for angry birds I do have a soft spot for Plant Vs. Zombies. So when my tablet informed me that there was a new release I was pretty excited; not sleep on the street for 3 nights awaiting a Halo release excited, more like "hey, I found a dollar!" excited. Anyway, as I quickly scanned the wording on the download page I noticed that it was free.
How is it that a "for profit" company can give away a product that undoubtedly took numerous people months to produce? By redefining the word "Free" that's how!
I really hate this new spin on the word free. If I have to agree to be bound by a rather large list of terms and conditions then it sounds to me like I am entering a contract. If I am entering a contact then this means that something is expected of me.
So just what is expected of me? A quick glance at the contract:
Consent to Use of Data. To facilitate product support, product development
and improvement as well as other services to you, you agree that EA or other
third parties may use cookies, web beacons and other analytic technologies to
collect, use, store and transmit non-personally identifiable technical and related
information regarding your mobile device (including unique device id or UDID), IP
address, geo-location, device make and model, operating system, software and
applications, including application usage data. In addition, EA and/or third parties
may collect, store, use and transmit non-personally identifiable game play data,
session data, browser identifiers, carrier information well as online and
Application usage metrics, statistics and/or analytics. Data collected by third
parties will be collected, used, stored, transferred and disclosed pursuant
to the third party’s privacy policy. See Appendix A for a non-exclusive list
of third parties that may collect data via this Application.
Appendix A contains 53 third parties.
Step 1: Collect everything you possibly can about me but don't slap my name on it. YOU respect my privacy.
Step 2: Sell all of this to third parties that may or may not respect my privacy.
This is Free?
P.S. non-personally identifiable? Really??