5 ms·

It's a big company doing, so it's gonna be fine.

techtics 12y ago
It's not just because they are a big company though. The "community", the industry and the government all share blame for the lack of liability for software. Edit: It's pretty bad form to downvote new accounts becuase you disagree. Imagine if I didn't know about hellbanning. Ask yourself what open source licenses, corporate EULAs and the NSAs defense have in common. The best hope here is that Lenovo explicitly promised someone something they didn't keep.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
harbingerzero 12y ago
It actually depends whether or not the practice is directly or indirectly agreed to by the user in the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy or similar document. Now, it's likely that users do agree to it, but if the language in their policies wasn't broad enough to cover action like this, theoretically it would be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as exceeding authorized use.
- chopin 12y ago
  This won't hold for Germany though. There is a concept of surprising clause (überraschende Klausel) as well as the concept of an unethical clause (sittenwidrige Klausel). In this case I would assume that both would hold even if there is some clause in the EULA. The BigCo argument holds in Germany unfortunately as well...
- userbinator 12y ago
  Some EULAs basically say "you give permission for us to access and modify any data in your system"... this is the first example that comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PunkBuster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PunkBuster These agreements could be summed up in 3 words: "we own you".
  - meowface 12y ago
    At least PunkBuster is spying for a relatively noble purpose: preventing cheating in online games. Cheating absolutely destroys the experience in multiplayer games and has killed many games. This is spying with the sole purpose of spreading ads and making money.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      So because a few people decide to cheat at a game they paid for, everyone who paid full price for the game is forced to install spyware which can and does modify files on your pc, take screenshots as you play the game, monitor your mouse inputs, keyboard, etc...?
      - meowface 12y ago
        I think that is fine, personally. Obviously others might not. You have to specifically agree to install/allow PunkBuster, and you can choose to play on servers that don't use PunkBuster. With Lenovo not only is there no opt-out, but you're not even aware of the adware and root CA installation. The "spyware" only spies on modifications to the game client in any way and tries to detect non-human involvement, which of course includes inspecting the file system and RAM. In theory it could harvest irrelevant information from your hard drive or memory, but no reverse engineer has ever made such a claim to my knowledge. Valve Anti-Cheat does very similar things, but is run by what many consider to be a trustworthy company, so not that many people take issue with it. If one trusts the company that distributes the spyware, it's not really a problem, in my opinion. If Valve were to ever violate that trust, it would severely harm their business. I also strongly disagree with DRM, because it only harms other players while providing no benefits. In contrast, online cheaters can completely ruin the playing experience for online games, and have heavily contributed to the death of some games. I also have no issue if people decide to cheat when in single-player mode. If you pay for the game you should be able to do whatever you want if you're not affecting others. It's only a problem when they're playing with other people over the Internet. PunkBuster and VAC only run when you're playing in online mode.
pconner 12y ago
"Adware is malware with a legal team"

It's not just because they are a big company though. The "community", the industry and the government all share blame for the lack of liability for software. Edit: It's pretty bad form to downvote new accounts becuase you disagree. Imagine if I didn't know about hellbanning. Ask yourself what open source licenses, corporate EULAs and the NSAs defense have in common. The best hope here is that Lenovo explicitly promised someone something they didn't keep.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

harbingerzero 12y ago

It actually depends whether or not the practice is directly or indirectly agreed to by the user in the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy or similar document. Now, it's likely that users do agree to it, but if the language in their policies wasn't broad enough to cover action like this, theoretically it would be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as exceeding authorized use.

chopin 12y ago
This won't hold for Germany though. There is a concept of surprising clause (überraschende Klausel) as well as the concept of an unethical clause (sittenwidrige Klausel). In this case I would assume that both would hold even if there is some clause in the EULA. The BigCo argument holds in Germany unfortunately as well...
userbinator 12y ago
Some EULAs basically say "you give permission for us to access and modify any data in your system"... this is the first example that comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PunkBuster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PunkBuster These agreements could be summed up in 3 words: "we own you".
- meowface 12y ago
  At least PunkBuster is spying for a relatively noble purpose: preventing cheating in online games. Cheating absolutely destroys the experience in multiplayer games and has killed many games. This is spying with the sole purpose of spreading ads and making money.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    So because a few people decide to cheat at a game they paid for, everyone who paid full price for the game is forced to install spyware which can and does modify files on your pc, take screenshots as you play the game, monitor your mouse inputs, keyboard, etc...?
    - meowface 12y ago
      I think that is fine, personally. Obviously others might not. You have to specifically agree to install/allow PunkBuster, and you can choose to play on servers that don't use PunkBuster. With Lenovo not only is there no opt-out, but you're not even aware of the adware and root CA installation. The "spyware" only spies on modifications to the game client in any way and tries to detect non-human involvement, which of course includes inspecting the file system and RAM. In theory it could harvest irrelevant information from your hard drive or memory, but no reverse engineer has ever made such a claim to my knowledge. Valve Anti-Cheat does very similar things, but is run by what many consider to be a trustworthy company, so not that many people take issue with it. If one trusts the company that distributes the spyware, it's not really a problem, in my opinion. If Valve were to ever violate that trust, it would severely harm their business. I also strongly disagree with DRM, because it only harms other players while providing no benefits. In contrast, online cheaters can completely ruin the playing experience for online games, and have heavily contributed to the death of some games. I also have no issue if people decide to cheat when in single-player mode. If you pay for the game you should be able to do whatever you want if you're not affecting others. It's only a problem when they're playing with other people over the Internet. PunkBuster and VAC only run when you're playing in online mode.

pconner 12y ago

"Adware is malware with a legal team"