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RealOne Player EULA Permits Automatic Use of Personal Info

By Ed Foster, Section UnFairUse
Posted on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 06:10:03 PM PDT
With DRM, license revocation, spyware and automatic downloads lurking everywhere, it’s best to take a look at what you’re actually agreeing to before accessing any media content these days. And that’s particularly true of a company like RealNetworks, which has a checkered past when it comes to its handling of customer information.

A reader was recently trying to watch a short movie snippet at an online site and found himself directed to download the latest RealOne Player. “All I wanted to do was see this movie snippet, but I wasn’t able to play it – I guess my Real Player was out of date,” the reader wrote. “So I went searching for the free Real Player, which I knew was supposed to be out there. I found it, did the download and start the install. Up pops the license.”

At first the reader thought the RealOne license was just the normal disclaimers and thou-shalt-not’s, but then he came upon this in the Automatic Communications Features section:

A number of communications features are automatic and are enabled by default. By installing and/or using the Software, you consent to the Software's communications features. Once you log into the Software, user information including your user id will be sent in communications with RN's servers. This information is used to access your regular account, premium content, non-premium content, services, features, and other personalized services. RN may match the user id to personally identifiable information in order to provide you with products, services, and software that you're entitled to and to provide you with relevant information. You are responsible for any telecommunications or other connectivity charges incurred through use of the Software.

After reading that and all the things RealNetworks and third parties could do with DRM, the reader decided it just wasn’t worth it. “Guess I never will know what was on those movie clips I wanted to see,” write the reader. “ If providers of content intend to use products to encode their content in ways that violate my privacy, then I guess the sponsors of those sites will not get my business.”
< Are Florida DMV Records For Sale? | Canadian QuickBooks Customers Face Deactivation >


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RealOne Player EULA Permits Automatic Use of Personal Info | 13 comments (13 topical) | Post A Comment
Personal Information[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by Anonymous User on Wed Dec 03, 2003 at 01:54:42 PM PDT

THat's why I lie to all those services, fake e-mail addresses, uncheck all the "Spam" boxes, fake addresses, fake personal information (most sites think I'm a widowed 21 year old female who makes over $150K/year who likes gay male porn...) and the like... The government is owned and run by these corporations and we the people can't afford to "play" at the legislative table, so don't look to the Federal Goverment for help....

[ Reply to This ]


RE: Personal Information[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous User on Thu Dec 04, 2003 at 10:36:34 AM PDT

I do that all the time; I think it's the best "civil" disobedience a user can employ against exploitative products like these. The only value these collections of user data have is in their accuracy, and the ability to corelate individuals from one list to entries in another. Every error and every foul-up in those lists wastes time, effort, and money -- and reduces the value of those lists to those who want to exploit them.

I recommend making minor errors in key fields. For example, my last name is not a common Anglo-French one, and has a rather counterintuitive spelling that drives Soundex and similar algorithms into fits; and paper junk mail frequently arrives with all manner of creative misspellings. So when I absolutely must use my last name, I leave out one of the first silent letters. Bang -- not only do I drop off almost any means of matching me by name with data from elsewhere, it changes the Soundex so they can't even track me that way.

I do similar things with other data fields -- faking a minor case of dyslexia covers a multitude of sins, and lets me swap letters and digits, or even change them entirely -- my ZIP is of the pattern WXYYZ; I usually put it down as WXYZZ, which happens to be the zip of the town I grew up in -- oops, old habits die hard. The real key is to not make the same "mistakes" every time -- the less consistency between instances of your data, the less use it is.

Of course, at my most paranoid, I don't even disguise my address -- I use that of Wrigley Field in Chicago instead; I outright falsify anything else that concerns me. But that's not nearly as fun as inserting subtle and inconsistent corruption into dozens of corporate databases.

Anarchistic fun aside, let me point out that ZoneAlarm Pro can also be helpful in this regard; if you tell it what data you don't want sent out onto the Net, it can detect a program trying to send it and lock it down before it gets out. I know this only from a friend's recommendation, so I don't know the extent of its protections, but even a little bit is better than nothing.


[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Zip codes[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous User on Fri Dec 05, 2003 at 08:00:13 PM PDT

Is 90210 an actual ZIP coide for Beverly Hills, cause that's the one I ALWAYS use... even though I live in the midwest...

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


yes, it is[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Sat Dec 06, 2003 at 06:35:48 AM PDT

i have used that before. I often use 22202 or 22209, both Arlington, VA, though I've never lived there. There's so much involved in being vigilant, though. Sometimes I pick random cities and look up the ZIP. I've 'lived' everywhere from Walla Walla, WA to Opelika, AL. i usually use an expletive for my name & random characters for an e-mail address. I also constantly create and abandon free webmail accts. I delete cookies after every session and after visiting sites run by certain companies. I have thousands of domains in my IE untrusted zone, including every domain owned by Real Networks, Intuit, and a few others. They own a lot. I block most outbound traffic with ZoneAlarm and kill webbugs with it. I also now, after years of running my acct. on my home PC as an administrator, run as a limited User so sneakware can't insinuate itself into my PC -- it can't write anywhere that matters. It makes me feel a little bit better knowing I'm filling their databases with crap. I do believe it's effective -- I've noticed several sites recently that used to ask for e-mail addresses and the like before downloading updates and the like now don't. I hit one yesterday -- FoundStone.com. They used to ask for all sorts of info that they presumably passed to their marketing folks if you wanted to download their freeware tools. Asking for info from security folks probably isn't going to get you that much!

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Corporations running America? Ahh, naivete...[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#9)
by SMEE on Tue Jan 06, 2004 at 08:11:51 AM PDT

The absolute rulers of this country aren't politician nor are they every Lib dippy fantasy, the corps. You would think you wouldn't have to tell an adult this...but the elite media is so brazenly pro-Leftist these days that the truth has to come out.

The real rulers of this country are the Federal judiciary and the bureaucracies. THEY run this country.

If you think otherwise, you are simply not paying any attention to life in these United States.

And please, enough with the Democratic National Committee Daily Talking Points...are you on their fax list or something?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]



Use Government Addresses[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#11)
by cmcphate on Thu Jan 22, 2004 at 11:06:26 AM PDT

I find it amusing to sign up with actual addresses of politicians. Let their offices receive the junk mail. And if the site doesn't require verification of email addresses, I usually just throw in president@whitehouse.gov or dhastert@mail.house.gov (Speaker of the House). We pay for the staff who reads their email; let them earn their keep. Maybe if they get enough spam, they'll do something about it.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Alternative Real player[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by Anonymous User on Thu Dec 04, 2003 at 03:33:41 PM PDT

There is player called Real Alternative out there that will Real Media without using real player. It uses an older version on windows Media player.

[ Reply to This ]


Another alternative[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#6)
by Anonymous User on Fri Dec 05, 2003 at 06:52:20 PM PDT

I dumped realplayer for Ultraplayer. Had no problems, except for the little visuals need to be turned off. Also use it to play WMA files. It doesn't try to phone home like MS WMP. To my knowledge it's all legal: www.ultraplayer.com

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Not sure how kosher, but it works...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#4)
by Anonymous User on Thu Dec 04, 2003 at 03:39:25 PM PDT

You can always download the "sanitized" version of RealPlayer called "Real Alternative." It's basically a set of codecs and apps that allow all of the RealPlayer functionality minus the spyware, nagware, adware, etc. It works extremely well for me (running Mozilla 1.5 and IE 6 under WinXP), and I haven't caught it doing anything untoward. They also have a "Quicktime Alternative" if you want, but personally I don't find Quicktime's nagging offensive enough to make it worth the bother.

Anyway, I wouldn't want to link to anything that's legally questionable, but Google is your friend...

[ Reply to This ]


I hate Real Player[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous User on Thu Dec 04, 2003 at 05:11:58 PM PDT

Some time ago I greatly regretted installing a copy of Real Player. It is one of the worst pieces of spyware I've seen - buggy, installing things you didn't ask for, taking over functions from other media programs without asking, asking questions in a way clearly meant to confuse you, buggy operation, and just basically RUDE - that is, doing whatever the designers want, regardless of what you would expect would be reasable. I had to uninstall it and run adaware to get the system into some kind of shape again, but only reinstalling the OS would do the job fully. STAY AWAY FROM THIS GARBAGE!

[ Reply to This ]


Just uninstalled Real Player One...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by SMEE on Tue Jan 06, 2004 at 08:15:50 AM PDT

...that came with my Vaio I bought three months ago. I do not recall it ever attempting to contact anything except for one movie clip I watched. Other than that, I don't recall any ZoneAlarm warnings that it tried to contact anyone. But I'm not taking any chances. I too routinely lie to these sites, list my birthdate as 1908, my sex as the fair one, my location as Uganda, that kind of thing. 'Tis a good idea. I automatically block email from all progs I install--'cepting of course email clients--with Zone Alarm. Anyone not running ZA is simply asking for trouble. See www.grc.com for a complete eval of firewalls...It's a great site that allows you to actually test your firewall against multiple types of scans and attacks.

[ Reply to This ]


sssss[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#12)
by Anonymous User on Sat Mar 20, 2004 at 04:48:57 PM PDT

sssss

[ Reply to This ]


wslaat[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#13)
by thegame on Wed Jun 18, 2008 at 06:09:52 AM PDT

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RealOne Player EULA Permits Automatic Use of Personal Info | 13 comments (13 topical) | Post A Comment
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