EA is stealing your credit card info

[Your Mom]

Why Does EA Want Your Credit Card Info?

Privacy policy leaves us scratching our heads.

by Dan Dormer, 08/10/2006

91 of 92 users recommend this story.

The game blog Dubious Quality took time to read all the fine print and legalese people tend to skip over when they just want to play a game... and what they discovered could be considered a little unnerving.

Examining EA's Privacy Policy, it was discovered that if you play an EA game on Xbox Live, you agree to allowing Microsoft to transfer your account information to EA. And what information are they getting, exactly?

Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, e-mail address, phone number, mobile number, home address, birth date and credit card information [emphasis ours]. In addition, we may collect demographic information such as gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, Internet IP address and connection, information about online activity such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths and other data that you may provide in surveys or online profiles, for instance. We may combine demographic information with personal information[again, emphasis ours].

It would be one thing if EA was actually billing you for services and needed the information for, as they describe it later in the document, "legitimate business objectives," but that's not the case. They're getting the info from Microsoft to build a profile on the people playing their games, and you have to wonder why EA needs the 411 on Joe Gamer. We contacted EA for comment on the issue yesterday, and are still awaiting an official response from the company.

Story was posted on 1UP.com. I have never gone online with a console yet but if some of you have maybe you should look into this?

[ACCBiggz]

I'm not too fussed, its EA. It'd be another thing if random crappy company A mysteriously stole information, but EA is really just building a profile to target future users. EA is a respectable enough company for me to feel safe with.

With that said I don't own a console.

[apsham]

They're blocking our credit cards from buying other sports titles.

[zero]

I know EA is the Death Star and everything, but companies do this stuff all the time. If you've ever done any kind of online transaction, tons of companies have your info. It is a bit unsettling, but all major credit cards have identity theft protection now in the highly unlikely event that someone does get ahold of your shit.