Apple's Game Center Shares Your Real Name 182
dotarray writes "Apple's Game Center has just made itself a few enemies through a simple change to their Terms of Service. Now, whenever you send a friend invitation, your real name will be attached as well as your Apple ID."
Apparently they didn't learn from the poor reaction to Blizzard's similar idea.
First Impression (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Apple has a game center?
2. This will have 0 negative reaction whatsoever. This is Apple people. If apple forced you to sign your name in blood to buy an iPhone, you would.
Re:First Impression (Score:2, Insightful)
Real Name? You're just writing it wrong...
If it's a friend... (Score:2, Insightful)
Blizzard users objected to needing to use their names on the forums.
Re:Not a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
1. If your friend already knows your first and last name, you probably know him enough to be able to talk to him about it on another communication channel ("Hey, I'm adding you to my apple game list")
2. If you don't know your friend personally, because you met him in another game, or another community - then you probably don't want him knowing details like that. I play a lot with the same community. In this case they will know me enough to recognise my nickname, but giving them my name and surname will not help them identify me any more than I would want them to.
Re:Kiinda like Liberals cheering for Wikileaks (Score:1, Insightful)
Kiinda like Liberals cheering for Wikileaks
Ahh, bringing politics into this discussion, and implying governments and corporations should have the same right to privacy as real people (not that legal definition BS with corporate personhood). Fuck you.
Bullshit, sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, BS. While the trolls were the first excuse Blizzard thought of, they also gave interviews in which they explicitly stated that they want to get more users out of it. They were hoping you'd basically advertise their cash cow for them, either directly or via the human tendency for mindless conformism. Think, "ooh, Jack and Jill from work and 10 of their facebook 'friends' are playing WoW, let's join them."
Heck, they even tried to spin it as a positive thing that they want your "friends of friends" (read, and anyone from the list of 2000 names someone can't even remember without the list, of someone you added just because there was no other global friend option) to keep messaging you they want you to return and tank for their preciousss epics. That's their #1 way to retain players long past the point where they've seen all quests and got bored with the repetitive raid grind. There must be a million people just in Blizzard's player base who are there just because of some delusion that if they quit a game they got bored with, or even if they skip one raid, they'll be somehow failing their guild and their "friends" who need them. Blizard just wanted to take that to the next level: let those people know who you are, where you are and what are they doing, and basically just help create more peer pressure to keep paying.
Heck, for their own BattleNet the above _still_ is listed as an advantage. That you can see if someone is playing Diablo or StarCraft instead of coming help get your epics, and you can message them to come back.
Basically I doubt that trolls were even a factor there, except as a more palatable excuse.
And in that aspect, I don't think Apple's move is any different. They too hope to use people's names to get more business, and probably give just as little about your privacy if it helps make a quick buck.
And frankly, how is it different from spam anyway? Anyone who knows me well enough to be called a friend, already knows how to contact me and ask me if I want to join in anything. Like, you know, send an email first, or give a call, or even an SMS, or whatever. If an invitation comes out of the blue actually needs something -- name or otherwise -- to convince me it's not random spam, then it _is_ spam. The only difference is that instead of being a batch run, it gives idiots a button to spam all their contacts for Apple's benefit.
And really, how's plastering someone's name on it going to help anyway? If I see my buddy's John Doe' name on an unsolicited email trying to sell me Viagra or wanting me to open a "taxes.xls.exe" file, I will think "Joe Job", not "ooh, it must be genuine". Why would I think if it's an other kind unsolicited ad, and John never bothered telling me about it before, it's any better? And yes, there will be smacktards who fall for it anyway, but then you could give most of those an email from "login.scam@i-pwn-u.ru" and they'd follow it anyway.
Re:First Impression (Score:2, Insightful)
Nope, not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Blizzard too wanted to do just that. They backed down on RealID only because of the massive negative reaction -- and the cynics would say probably temporarily, until they manage to find some better excuse.
The original idea for RealID was precisely that it will be on for everyone. Including, yes, that Death Knight who you think has teh hots for you because she boosted you once in the Deadmines, and that healer who must be all over your junk 'cause she was healing you more, and that hunter who probably wants your child because she agreed with you twice on the boards, and whatnot. And everyone who ever posted on the boards, including to ask for some tech support. Why do you think there was that much outrage and some women were scared shitless of stalkers and rapists when that idea came out?
So let's not pretend that Blizzard was so much smarter or better people. Blizzard wanted to rape your privacy twice as hard as Apple for a quick buck, they just had to back down when their idea turned out as popular as free kicks in the crotch for everyone.
Same as Blizzard? I don't think so... (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the Blizzard reaction was justified because RealID was going to be used in their forums. You know... where everyone in the world with a Blizzard forum account will be able to see it. Dumb idea.
This on the other hand, is very different. I didn't RTFA, but from the information in the news post, only friends to whom you send invitations will be sent your real name.
Entertain me here, but I would guess that if you are sending an invitation to someone specifically, you already know them and they probably know your real name anyway. If you are the sort of person who sends invites to people you don't know, then you deserve what you get if unknown_person_a gets your real name along with the invitation and does something bad with it. That's just being Darwin stupid.
At least on the surface, this is FAR different than Blizzard's RealID fiasco.
Re:First Impression (Score:3, Insightful)
My suspiciion is that this would be in the US?
In the UK such a term would fall foul of UCTA as well as general Sales of Goods, and would be unenforceable.
Re:First Impression (Score:1, Insightful)
My first thought was "if you have nothing to hide, why do you care?".
After all, it is the logic that every fucktard out there applies to every invasion of MY privacy.
Re:First Impression (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>I love how the Anti-Apple folks on Slashdot are so quick to jump on the bandwagon
Maybe they just haven't learned to shut-up. I have. I got tired of being modded "troll" whenever I made a "Apple acts no better than microsoft" or similar comment. Apple Fanboys have mod points and they use them to censor people that criticize their Holy Relics or messiah.
BTW:
(1) The store has a photocopier. I would have asked for a copy of the contract else: No sale.
(2) Contracts are not binding if they violate State or Union law. You can not sign your rights or legally-protected privileges away. Paypal discovered that earlier this decade when the judge nullified most of their Terms of Service, and then ordered them to repay all the money they had stolen from customers w/o due process.
Re:Same as Blizzard? I don't think so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Entertain me here, but I would guess that if you are sending an invitation to someone specifically, you already know them and they probably know your real name anyway. If you are the sort of person who sends invites to people you don't know, then you deserve what you get if unknown_person_a gets your real name along with the invitation and does something bad with it. That's just being Darwin stupid.
There are many people that I only know by online persona or in games, that sometimes I have moved on to playing other games with. Just because I game with someone online doesn't mean they know my real name, or that I want them to. This is true whether or not I use forums.