[casual_games] Casual Games audience hardware survey ?

[Ron]

 > We never reached a conclusion... If you don't collect IP numbers or info
 > that can help identify a computer or individual, is there really any
 > problem?

Maybe not legally, but I really object to people snooping on what I am 
doing on my personal computer.  When I surf the web, I accept that some 
amount of information is going to be tracked because I am using their 
server when I visit their site, but when using an application on my 
machine, I find it objectionable.

Many of the applications/games transmit this information not once, but 
every time you start-up, so they are getting a lot of information about 
your habits.   In isolation, this information may not be very useful, 
but with the amount of data that is collected and shared with "marketing 
partners", it's not easy to start to build an extensive profile of you. 
  All it takes in one of these "partners" to have your credit card 
information and a complete line is made.

I also trust that my browser is only sending a little set of 
information, but I have no guarantee when it's a .exe doing the collecting.

I don't mean to be paranoid (yes I am), but everyone should be concerned 
with every little bit of information that is collected about them, 
because when they put it all together and it gets interesting.

Using ZoneAlarm, I block ALL outgoing traffic from any app that doesn't 
NEED access to the interest.  It's scary to see all the applications 
(and casual games) that try to connect each time they are started, with 
no warning.

I'm ok with a one time question about collecting machine stats, but it 
would need to be done once and only once and if I said "no", then it 
should never ask again, and even then I'd be irritated and suspicious.

Also, does the fact that something like this would be opt-in skew the 
results?

Ron






Jonas Beckeman wrote:
>> Before I could use such a tool 
>> I would need to have some questions answered about privacy issues.
> 
> We never reached a conclusion... If you don't collect IP numbers or info
> that can help identify a computer or individual, is there really any
> problem?
> 
> I've never had any site ask me if I'm OK with leaving my IP number, referrer
> and browsing history (and I think most sites store those variables), so I
> wonder which laws in which countries require you to do that? Where are you
> located, what are the laws you've designed you visitor info collection
> policy around?
>