OpenFeint and Privacy concerns (bad review trends on Amazon AppStore)

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hi everyone,

If you follow the Amazon AppStore market and the reviews there, it seems that games that use OpenFeint are getting horrible reviews. And reviewers claim that these games send all sorts of stuff off the phone. I started seeing this negative review trend a few days ago - when Amazon puts a new free app of the day on, many reviews are bad because just of the fact that games use OpenFeint.

For my game OF is opt-in, because I didn’t want to do anythin automatic on users behalf without them wanting it, but now I’m wondering.

Has anyone noticed this as well? Do your games still use OpenFeint?

–wunderwuzzi [import]uid: 118947 topic_id: 24909 reply_id: 324909[/import]

#2

Below are examples of reviews of today’s free game[1]. Just picked those that mention OpenFeint. There is certainly something going on, I haven’t noticed this on Google Play yet. Anyone know what’s going on?

–wunderwuzzi
[1] Example reviews of today’s free game:

-) I will never again download an app that uses openfeint. I used to think the people who complained about openfeint were paranoid until I took the time to research it myself. I appreciate the F.A.O.T.D. as much as anyone, but I wish Amazon would put a stop to this.

-) game is not bad, but it collect all your personall info and forward it to server, this is unusuall for paid game.

-) This app has one and only one purpose. To gather your PRIVATE IDENTITY data and sell it to the highest bidder. If you are comfortable with that, then by all means, play this “game”.

-) After researching open feint, I uninstalled and refuse to support any game that uses it. Research it for yourself people, it is bad news.
-)Make sure to research Openfeint for yourself, don’t just listen to what people say here. Use your God-given brain and find out why Openfeint needs to be boycotted!

-) Send a message to developers like this that we won’t allow our personal information to be collected and sold so that we can play a silly little game. Protect yourself and don’t download crap like this.

-) How much is your identity worth to you? Could you put a price on it? Would you trade your privacy for a free game?

-) Get rid of openfeint! no one wants that garbage! As a dev you are doing yourself an injustice. Its bloatware and spyware. People want privacy.

-) I refuse to install this app even though its free because I do not wish to share my information with immoral devs.

-) Data Mining Software, OpenFeint, Ruins Another Good App

-) There is no way I’m downloading another app with that stupid, annoying, OpenFeint

-) openfeint. n o n e e d t o s a y m o r e… faotd is really a disappointment with all these openfeint junkers. black bunny games… another on the mental blacklist.
[import]uid: 118947 topic_id: 24909 reply_id: 101142[/import]

#3

Its all fall out from all the UDID business right now.

Everyone I’ve shown my app to with OF doesn’t know what it is and they just say no to it anyway.

I don’t see any value for it now that we can get to native Game Center. Kinda leaves Android out to dry but . . . [import]uid: 19626 topic_id: 24909 reply_id: 101156[/import]

#4

Yeah, for having an Online Leaderboard a game could just create a random number (GUID) and use that - which would work just fine, no need to access device id.

I did some research on the Google Play market, and haven’t found these kind of bad reviews yet. Probably because OpenFeint is sort of well established on Android and Google Play. Amazon customers are just not used to it and bail out.

Corona Launchpad probably falls into a similar bucket- I have been contemplating to remove it too. Then my game would require no extra permissions, which I could sell sort of as a feature. :slight_smile:

–wunderwuzzi
[import]uid: 118947 topic_id: 24909 reply_id: 101169[/import]

#5

I went ahead removed openfeint and also set launchpad = false, but I still have three permissions (incl. read_phone_state, internet). Whatever I do I still see permissions being in the apk file. I read about apk manager, but was wondering if there is an easier way.

There are some posts that talk about this, but I haven’t found a good solution on how to remove the permissions entirely. It seems that Corona is automatically adds those.

I thought it would be easiest to just set the android permission table to an empty table, but that doesn’t help.

How can we remove all permissions from an apk?

I’m fine if the app crashes if it requests something it hasn’t permissions for, that can be discovered during testing, but by default I don’t wanna have any permissions present.

Any helps and hints appreciated,
–wunderwuzzi [import]uid: 118947 topic_id: 24909 reply_id: 101668[/import]

#6

I think it’s nothing to do with the most recent UDID flak. OpenFeint was subject to a class action lawsuit last summer regarding their collection/sale of personal information above and beyond the UDID. That lawsuit was evidently dismissed, but of course nobody reports on *that*.

Everything they do is spelled out in the Privacy Policy, and I thought they were even moving away from UDID to their own GUID as early as last August.

Not to sound like an OF apologist, those reviews sound more like FUD than anything else, especially since OF is opt-in to begin with. [import]uid: 44647 topic_id: 24909 reply_id: 101681[/import]