Brainlord Mesomorph

Well, a little of "A" a little of "B" Mostly I guess this was a way to say "goodbye" to you guys with good reason. I fully believe TT is aware of everything that happens here, even if they do ignore us, the community is what they bought. Anything less would be incompetence. Or reading that EULA maybe it is incompetence. I think they may be more attentive when #KSP=Spyware starts showing up on twitter. Which, unless I hear a response will be Friday. A third option is a petition for change.

hmm, that sounds like it might be the behavior of foreign mobsters. Yeah, I don't think that guy knows what a conflict-of-interest means ( I was trying to stay out of that)

ABSOLUTELY NOT! I have not damaged anyone's reputation at all. and "a clarification they cannot provide due to conflicts of interest" WHAT? There are"conflicts of interest" in assuring us that this isn't spyware? Hmmmm

Which is what I'm suggesting, (footsteps, door closes)

What are you talking about?!! All I'm asking for is a clarification of a license agreement.

You want to start a GoFundMe page for the lawyer? I'm just trying to make my point here. Social media justice worked for the Star Wars people. It might not. It might only be the eulogy of why I'm not here any more. So be it. That will be their admission that it IS spyware.

Wow, still not understanding you - or maybe you're not understanding me. IMHO (there, does that make you feel better) if you agree to that EULA you are agreeing to spyware. knock yourself out. I don't agree.

Perhaps you should clean your room. I don't understand you point here. First: I only claimed to reading this at least as well as the average layman. Second: I don't know of any company that has its attorneys going over the EULA of every app they used, on the other hand, as an IT consultant and network administrator, I would be lax in my due diligence if I didn't read the licence agreement for everything I installed (and there have been times when I had to print that out and highlight a section of it and hand it to the boss, and suggest that she take it to her lawyers). I believe the only "definitive" reading of any contract is done by a judge, and only then if the other side doesn't appeal. EDIT: In response to the general claim: "You're not a lawyer, so you don't know what it means." I am, and so are you, the people they are asking to sign this agreement. They better be able to explain it to our satisfaction. Or at least I'm not signing.

An open letter to Take Two Interactive: New York, we have a problem. Before I get in to that, just a little bit about myself; I’ve been a professional software developer and IT consultant for over 30 years. In my career, I’ve read hundreds of EULA’s, often on behalf of my clients. I have even written three or four of them, and many more Software Development Agreements (specifically the sections covering what the software will and won’t do and what our responsibilities were if it fails). Our company lawyer once actually told me, “If you ever get tired writing software, you could always get a job writing tort.” So I believe that I am at least as capable as the average layman of interpreting a software license agreement. Now, given that KSP is stand-alone computer game that uses no network access much less Internet access, has no online player ranking system, has no in-game online access of any kind, has no e-commerce system (virtual or otherwise) and involves absolutely no personal information of any kind, and given the broadest interpretation of the Terms of your EULA and its accompanying Privacy Policy, this is nothing less than a License Agreement for spyware. These two paragraphs are especially troubling: “… you consent to the information collection and usage terms set forth in this section and Licensor's Privacy Policy, including (where applicable) (i) the transfer of any personal information and other information to Licensor, its affiliates, vendors, and business partners, and to certain other third parties, such as governmental authorities, in the U.S. and other countries located outside Europe or your home country, including countries that may have lower standards of privacy protection; (ii) the public display of your data, … (iii) the sharing of your gameplay data with hardware manufacturers, platform hosts, and Licensor's marketing partners; and (iv) other uses and disclosures of your personal information or other information as specified in the above-referenced Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time….” And from the above-referenced Privacy Policy: “…the information we collect may include personal information such as your first and/or last name, e-mail address, phone number, photo, mailing address, geolocation, or payment information. In addition, we may collect your age, gender, date of birth, zip code, hardware configuration, console ID, software products played, survey data, purchases, IP address and the systems you have played on. We may combine the information with your personal information and across other computers or devices that you may use.“ Starting at the top; “…governmental authorities, in … other countries … that may have lower standards of privacy protection…” Excuse me? Why?! You’re a New York company. Under what circumstances are you sharing our personal information with foreign governments? Not as surprising, although equally unacceptable is selling all our personal information to unnamed “marketing partners.” And the ridiculously overbroad “other uses … as amended from time to time.” Taken at its broadest interpretation that means you literally can anything you want, any time you want. Please. And while we’re on the topic of overbroad requests; you may “collect” my “photo?” It doesn’t say photos I submit to you, or photos I upload somehow, it just says photo. There are a lot of photos on my computer. Taken at its broadest interpretation this means you can crawl my hard drive looking for photos and then taking them. “…[P]ayment information… software products played, survey data, purchases…” again overbroad, it doesn’t say payments I make to you, your software products played, your survey data, or even your purchases. Taken at its broadest interpretation that means you can spy on the purchases I make from Amazon, record them, along with my payment information (and then sell that a foreign government). It’s ludicrous. It has been argued that this a just single EULA for the entire wide array of your products, and that the clearly offensive sections simply don’t apply to us KSP players. Perhaps. But I ask; Would you sign an agreement with your gardener that gave him access to your bank account, because in his other job, he’s an accountant? And he just uses the same contract for everybody? (“Oh, that part doesn’t apply to you, just sign here, and also I’ll need your account number.”) I don’t think so. Now do I actually believe that Take Two Interactive is just a front for foreign mobsters installing spyware on everyone’s computer? No. Well, not completely. At least not yet. I do think your lawyers have gone way too far, and crafted a license agreement that is way over-vague, way over-balanced in your favor, and does give you permission to install spyware. They may have done so assuming we don’t read these things or know what they mean, or that we’ll sign anything. They were wrong. I do know that there are companies in the world that do install spyware. And there is a far fewer number of companies that have at least an allegedly legitimate reason for wanting that kind of information. Facebook, I believe has a “feature” where they will announce everything you buy for you. I have no idea why anyone would do that. And I (and I believe a lot of people) not use facebook because it is an invasion of privacy. KSP is not Facebook (thankfully), and my gardener is not my accountant. Therefore: I do not believe I am being unreasonable, and I do believe I speak for a very large segment of the KSP community, when I say: This license agreement must be changed. Your EULA even says it can be changed at any time, so change it now. At the very least you need to go through and add some prepositional phases, footnotes, lists of which of your products apply to which paragraphs, something. Specify which photos and purchases you are referring to, under what conditions you will give our personal information to foreign governments (?!). Even better would be to simply make another version of the EULA in which you have removed anything that doesn’t apply to a stand-alone game like KSP. (Like the two above paragraphs, in their entirety.) I say it must be changed because I believe not changing the EULA would be a tacit admission by Take Two that all of our worst fears are true. It would be an admission that even if the current build of KSP doesn’t contain spyware, you do intend to put it in there at some point. There is simply no other logical reason not to change this agreement. And let me say here that no reassurances from company spokesmen will do, we need this addressed in that EULA. So please let’s fix this little dustup before it becomes a full-blown kerfuffle. Assuming you are not an evil company intent on installing spyware, just please make that clear in the EULA. We don’t want this to turn into the Star-Wars-Pay-To-Play-Luke-Skywalker fiasco. We don’t want half the KSP community on social media screaming #KSP=Spyware! Do we? So please let just fix this. How about this: You give us a KSP EULA that isn’t a license for spyware, and I’ll buy every last bit of DLC you ever produce. Deal? (and I think I speak for a large section of the community when I say that, too) Sincerely , Brainlord Mesomorph KSP Player and Enthusiast (from version 0.23 to 1.31, anyway) To the Community: If you agree with me here, please LIKE this post.

Really, I'm an optimist. I was hoping that all our liquid and vinegar might actually move the needle, and force TT to edit that down to a "Stand alone game" EULA that we find acceptable.

I don't know the source language, but the IDE is Unity.

not that we've found...yet. So far it only appears to be the same kind of debug data that Squad was getting.

You think agreeing to a EULA that basically says "this is spyware" has no relation to whether or not the product contains spyware?

ITS IN THE EULA!

But I'm not buying anything from them. And yet they still want my bank info. That's fine.

Funny you should mention the total lack of apps on my phone. (those EULAs are also unacceptable) or that I don't use amazon or Google apps. But online services do have a legitimate need for some of that. KSP is a stand-alone game. They do not need (and will not get) access to my personal information.

No. Not at all. The only thing that mattered in that negotiation was the number of zeros on the check. What TT does with KSP after they bought it is their business. (or, if I have my way, their total lack of business)

WRONG. I understand legalize. I'm a software developer, I've WRITTEN EULAs. For a stand alone app, this EULA is unacceptable.

not an opt in 1.4, no way to opt out in 1.4. no choice at all.

For the 4th time now: It doesn't matter whether or not I can hide the data from them, what matters is them CLAIMING THE RIGHT TO IT. and forcing you to agree. (And all that data is on your hard drive someplace, and you're agreeing to let them dig for it.) Granted in the current build, so far today, we haven't caught them taking it, but that's immaterial. Change the EULA.

I guess you haven't read the other 11 pages of this thread. WHY: The EULA is unacceptable. They claim the right to huge amounts of personal info to sell to anyone they see fit. It doesn't matter what they are or are not downloading today, what matters is that they claim the right to take all this personal data. WHAT: I'm boycotting 1.4 and all the DLC. I'm no longer advising people to buy KSP, (quite the opposite). I won't be helping anyone in this game anymore, no more advice, no more tutorials. I was planning a section of my personal website to be devoted to KSP. Screw that. And I'm advising everyone else to #boycottKSP Here, I'm a reasonable man, if TT is a respectable company that isn't stealing my personal information and selling it to the highest bidder, then simply say so in the EULA! but right now their EULA says the opposite.

I'm not sure, I only read that EULA Monday, so before then. We have their official comment -- ITS THE EULA. And this isn't panic. Its a calm, well thought out , very angry boycott.

I think Occam would agree that if they change a EULA to include their right to access my personal information, its because they plan to take it. That is the simplest explanation.

You think a company who writes that EULA wouldn't put shills in the forums? This WAS KSP. We USED TO do things the right way. That's why I'm so angry.

Why?! I want TT to worry. I want them to be shocked at the speed and intensity of our rejection of their invasion of our privacy. I want them to have to re-think their sales projections, with the word "boycott" in mind. I want them to change that EULA. Now.