Invasion of privacy within your own home
Now you can argue that this is all relevant information as it’s gaming related and certainly if I was playing it would be… but listening to some tunes whilst browsing family photos? I don’t think so. What was very worrying was that even using the Xbox 360’s non-gaming functions, it still kept reporting what I was up to. AS part of our experiment I thought I’d catch the boss out and load up Media Centre using the Xbox 360 as an extender… He knew I was going into MCE before it had even finished booting from my media PC!
So why is this a problem? Well for starters just what we do in our own homes is an entirely private matter. You wouldn’t ring the neighbours up and tell them what you’re having for dinner or what you’re going to watch on TV, would you? In fact, you wouldn’t ring up your mate and tell him you’re going to listen to some music, flick through a few snaps and then settle down with a DVD… except Microsoft seem to think you would. So kiss goodbye any thoughts of being able to boot up your Xbox 360, have a quick blast of PGR3 then watch a DVD in the privacy of your own home as Microsoft are flagging your actions to anyone you know. We’ll know what you played, if you watched a movie, if you listened to music and even if you booted up MCE to catch up on the telly viewing… Xbox LIVE and Microsoft will tell us.
This is taking the mickey now... I'm not even using the Xbox 360 for gmaing, I'm logged into MCE through it... but now you know, eh?Now if you’re thinking that having your mates knowing if you’re listening to music isn’t so bad then you’d better brace yourself. All this information about what you’re doing isn’t confined to just the people on your friends list, oh no. Anyone you’ve played with recently will be able to see what you’re doing too! Flicking through to the players list, you can see all the people who played in any online games with you, regardless of their status or reputation. From there you can pull up their profile and see what they’re doing… and they can do just the same to you. So Microsoft have not only told all my mates what I’m doing, but they’ve now told a bunch of total strangers too!
Hmmm... let's see what other people are up to, shall we?You could get much the same result by randomly opening the phone book and calling the first number you see. If you did that purely to tell a total stranger what you were doing, had done and were going to do you’d very soon end up in a padded cell with a snug fitting jacket… And what stops you from doing just that? Your sense of what’s private and what isn’t. This is something Microsoft seems to have missed… the difference between what an Xbox LIVE user regards as private and public.
We've no idea who this guy is, we just played a game with him sometime recently but now we know what he's doing too... Hope it's a good film, James!So here’s a message for Bill and Co:
Sure, show off my gamer card, no problem. Show off my awards by all means and what games I own too, that’s fine. But don’t tell a bunch of total and utter strangers exactly what I’m up to with my Xbox 360… unless of course you’d like to give me your personal phone numbers and e-mail address, just so I can make sure I tell you what I’m up to every minute I have my Xbox 360 turned on.
Oh yeah if you do give me those details, BIll, I expect you to answer whenever I call, day or night... afterall, if you're that keen to see what I'm up to with my Xbox 360, you really don't want to miss out on the juicy stuff in my life... SO what's the international dialling code for the States again?
