Publisher Electronic Arts has spoken out against allegations from German gamers—and the respected newspaper Spiegel—that its Origin online service is "spying" on consumers.
Spiegel has highlighted the fact that some components of Origin's license agreement could potentially violate German law, while gamers are upset following the posting of images that reportedly show Origin tapping into other programs installed on your PC.
This led to two major German retailers allowing PC gamers to return the recently-released Battlefield 3, even if the game's CD key had been used.
In response to this, EA has issued a statement, stating, "We have updated the End User License Agreement of Origin, in the interests of our players to create more clarity. Origin is not spyware. Neither do we use nor install spyware on the PCs of users."
"We do not have access to information such as pictures, documents or personal data, which have nothing to do with the execution of the Origin program on the system of the player, neither will they be collected by us."
"EA takes the privacy of its users very seriously. We have taken every precaution to protect the personal and anonymous user data collected."
EA denies spying on Battlefield 3 Origin users [Eurogamer]
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