Adware Companies Buying Game Developers
miller60 writes "At least one Adware company has purchased a game developer, hoping to use game downloads to install advertising software on gamers' computers. 180solutions, which recently received $40 million in venture capital funding, says its purchase of Full Armor Studios is the "first of many gaming relationships the company will forge over the coming months.""
I'll deal with it effectively, by dropping all packets to or from the ad server.
Error: No response from authentication server. Please make sure you are connected to the Internet before playing this game.
From what I remember eGames was (and their older releases still are) pulling this type of stunt. If you were using some of the free ISP connectivity, your "spare" CPU time was sold to the highest bidder.
The illegal act is not notifying the end user of the software and its purpose. As long as you are notified, its legal. (The notice could be similar to the "privacy statements" from financial instutions -- "We value your privacy.... We share only with [highest bidding] business partners your confidential information.")