unforum

[Randomeis]

The power of ARGs used for EVIL!

[notgordian]

I can think of a handful of possibilities for how it could happen -- here are a few off the top of my head. Everybody's favorite stand-ins Alice, Bob, and Darth will be your characters. These are obviously doom and gloom situations (with one exception that's just me being petty)

Revenge: Darth is pretty pissed off at Alice for breaking up with him. So he decides to create a "game" using his contact information and passwords as a character -- people start calling her telephone number, rooting through her email, writing friends / family that come up from a Google search, etc. The "Revenge" thing is very possible -- there have been a number of games where PMs inadvertently revealed personal information and had to say "please stop flooding me with messages" -- I know it happened twice with Iris.

Profit: Darth starts up a company that makes ARGs -- it's heavy on the user-submitted content end of things, and as part of the EULA he claims all rights to submitted videos. He creates missions likely to attract the pay-per-view media audience and sells videos of Alice and Bob doing crazy missions for profit. Companies frequently claim more rights in EULAs and privacy statements than they legally might have a right to, and the law isn't very favorable to joint ownership. I haven't done due diligence, but ownership rights for user-created content could, in some situations, be claimed by a user agreement. (Note: that wasn't legal advice. Relying on it would be stupid, and I'm not sure about the accuracy of the conclusion yet)

DDOS: Darth really doesn't like his co-worker Alice's website (run on a budget hosting service), so posts in the Cloverfield forum that there's a Slusho clue in there. Fees accrue. Websites aren't always prepared for unexpected loads, and a few big games (or a /.ing) can do quite a bit -- we're a curious bunch. And curiosity killed the server.

"Bad" Causes: Darth is a big fan of NAMBLA, and wants more people to rally behind the cause. So he creates an ARG that includes an online petition, working in getting players to sign it into the storyline. All of a sudden, NAMBLA supporters grow. Hey, the Daily Show started it...

Making Resources Available: Alice made a really cool ARG and came up with the PERFECT means of innocuously hiding messages for her game. I mean, this is better than that stuff from "A Beautiful Mind". Darth finds out about it and appropriates it to pass on information for his black market dealings. Not really that much of a concern unless it's your job to filter out ARG stuff and actually illegal/unsavory stuff. How many PMs have been contacted by law enforcement agencies so far?

[Nighthawk]

[Gbutton]

[notgordian]

Gbutton: that one's the example of me being petty -- generally, I don't like the use and misuse of EULAs. It comes off as disingenuous, and takes advantage of people's imperfect understanding of their rights. The issue is going to come up eventually -- there are too many instances of user-created content in MMOs, collaborative storywriting projects, and the like for anything otherwise to occur.

What I consider disappointing about that reality is that thanks to clauses making EULAs modular (even if one clause in particular gets struck down the rest holds) people will keep claiming more rights than they are legally entitled.

So, in conclusion -- I don't particularly have a problem with companies coming up with profit models. My bone of contention is when they aren't upfront about it. I don't consider a EULA to be the proper mechanism for creating actual notification, and so I get very frustrated seeing their use and misuse.

[Gbutton]

Oh, ok. I was just looking at the wrong part of that one, and I agree, hiding your intent in the EULA is a great way to lose your audience.