EA's Origin may contain spyware, angers half the internet

You may remember us reporting on EA's Origin service over the last couple of month. This service is to be direct competition to Steam but above and beyond that, it was supposed to also bring more social features to their games on iOS and Android, and eventually sell their games on there for mobile as well.

So a forum user over at the Escapist Magazine Forums went through the EULA for EA's Origin and found some pretty interesting information. According to the EULA, EA says that by downloading Origin onto your PC that you are giving them the right to monitor your PC, make a profile of you which includes what programs you have installed, what websites you use and all that other good stuff the Spyware generally does. You have to agree to this EULA in order to use Origin. If you don't, you can't use it. It doesn't mean that Origin will actually do all of that.

Now you may be wondering, "what does this have to do with me?". Well that's simple. EA's Origin, as I mentioned earlier, is supposed to include mobile games and social community features that will be integrated into existing and future games. The plan is to make Origin the "Steam" of mobile gaming as well as competing against Steam on a PC level.

Now we are not saying to run out and boycott EA and everything about EA. What we are doing is bringing awareness to this issue to you. See EA's plans for all the mobile goodness for Origin are supposed to happen in the near future. With how Android works, it wouldn't be hard to add a similar function into a mobile app for Origin either. Let it be known now though that, as of the time of writing this, none of EA's games currently on the Android Market have anything to do with Origin yet.

We will be following this as it develops and keep everyone up-to-date.

Website Referenced: Escapist Magazine Forums via Destructoid