Editorial: Friendship Web or Snooper Web?
by Alphaville Herald on 12/06/04 at 3:23 pm
EA/Maxis picks its spots to champion the privacy of its users. If, as was the case, a user claims to have beaten his 8 year old sister and put her in the hospital, well that?s a case where EA/Maxis has said that they can?t notify the police because it would violate their privacy policy. But what exactly does the notion of online privacy come to in the wake of the new ?friendship web.? The virtue of the old web was that our friends were or own business; if we wanted the world to know that Dyerbrook or Lady Julianna were our friends, we could choose to link them. Or not. Now there is no longer such a luxury. Every single contact between every two sims is recorded, tabulated, and goes into the computation of your friendship web. Interviewing a scammer for the AVH? Don?t look now, but the scammer is now one of your best friends. Hooking up with Daddy’s Little Hooker for an hour of friendly fun in the hot tub? Try explaining your new top friend to your sim spouse. Didn?t want your friends to know that you were visiting those Alphaville Christians? Gays? BDSMers? AVH Reporters? Forget it. Your contact with each and every group is being logged and is now available for EVERYONE in TSO to see. There are many things to complain about regarding the idiotic new friendship web, but this utter disdain for user privacy quite clearly violates the spirit if not the letter of the EA Privacy Policy, and if they don?t fix it we should consider class action remedy.
RB
Jun 12th, 2004
I have already pointed out how bad these new webs are in a previous web poll and on stratics, but nobody cares, Because that’s the EA way. lol.
The new webs are a telemarketers dream and nothing else. EA encourages scammers and now they encourage spammers as well, by making it so bloody easy to find others. LMFAO.
When will the head morons at EA stop this crazyness?? they are beyond a joke, even late shows would’nt interview them.
- RB
MattyS
Jun 12th, 2004
I have no problem with privacy i have over 7 pages of contacts i dont know no one cares
Cluck
Jun 13th, 2004
http://www.theavbuzz.bravehost.com
CLUCK!
Dyerbrook
Jun 13th, 2004
Uri, I know you don’t want the world to know about our affair, so I deleted that Sim completely, so that no one can see you were once 100 percent green at the very top of my balloons. But…we’ll always have that four place on the top of the services category, won’t we, Uri? So you see it’s easy to defeat Maxis/EA, Uri, as you ought to have known, if you see something you wouldn’t want everyone to know showing up in your balloons, just delete…lather, rinse, repeat…Yours 4-Ever, Dyerbrook
urizenus
Jun 13th, 2004
Too late, DB, cat’s out of the bag. At least no one knows about our three-way with Lady Julianna though.
ian
Jun 14th, 2004
i’m freaking out man…ea knows i am friends with Uri…oh man im fucked
Liz
Jun 14th, 2004
why do you think i just deleted my gina sim in av? lol jk, uri and i were rumored to be having a hot love affair with or without the balloons.
Dyerbrook
Jun 15th, 2004
3-way with Julianna? Not on your life. Everybody knows what happens when you are AFK doesn’t count.