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Apple Game Center T&C Now Shares Full Names w/Friends

TMO Talk (7)

Apple has updated the Terms and Conditions agreement for its iOS Game Center feature. The new terms, which must be accepted to begin or continue using the service, stipulate that users will be sharing the full name associated with their Apple ID if they send or accept a friend request with other Game Center users.

Game Center is Apple’s leaderboard and achievement tracking service for iOS games. When developers add in support for Game Center, players can see both the high scores of their friends, as well as the overall leaderboards based on Apple ID names. We noted that names in the leaderboard for players with whom you are not friends now have quotes around their name.

The update notice in Game Center in full:

The full name associated with your Apple ID will be shared with the recipient or sender, as applicable, when you send or accept a friend request, including requests previously sent or received. If you prefer not to share your full name with friends, you should either remove that friend promptly (within 24 HOURS of the time you accept these terms and conditions) by tapping the “Unfriend” button at the bottom of that friend’s screen in Game Center, or do not click “AGREE,” in which case you will not be able to use Game Center.

Game Center T&C

You’ll find the changes the next time you launch Game Center on iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

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3 Observer Comments

What an interesting double-edged sword!

Will it be enough to kill Game Center once and for all?

   Actions Bosco (Brad Hutchings) said on March 17th, 2011 at 11:39 PM (Edited: 05/26/2012 12:39 AM):

This definitely begs for an explanation of why they made the change. Some here have been trumpeting Apple’s commitment to user privacy, and this seems to run counter to that perceived commitment.

This really upsets me… It feels like Facebook is taking over Mac and forcing you into either giving up your privacy or restricting your friendships to people who you actually know.  At least on FB you can lie about your name… and with the GC, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a way to turn it off, so even if you refuse to agree to the new T&C, there’s nothing you can do about it… you get bugged by every game you have that uses GC every time you play the game about logging into GC… which requires agreeing to the T&C… At the least they should allow you to turn GC off!

I don’t even have GC friends that I don’t know personally but I still refuse to give up this privacy.  There’s no reason that I know of that Mac can’t allow us to create an alias like on any other gaming site.  And honestly, I feel that the people who will be most affected by this are those who don’t know that they should be worried about protecting their privacy and just agree so that they can get on with their lives.

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