Marketplace Tech for Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Video game years are kind of like dog years. And that makes the game Everquest, which turned 14-years-old this month, positively ancient. Everquest was one of the first big games to be an MMO -- Massively Multiplayer Online -- lots of people play against each other by Internet. Dave Georgesen of Sony Online Entertainment has watched these kinds of games spread using the so-called "free to play" model, where you can start without buying it. And, a new academic study shows it's quite easy to identify someone by tracking their movements digitally. Researchers writing in Scientific Reports conclude all they need is four pieces of location data to figure out who most people are. Among the implications: When companies gather location data without names and addresses that doesn't necessarily protect privacy.
Video game years are kind of like dog years. And that makes the game Everquest, which turned 14-years-old this month, positively ancient. Everquest was one of the first big games to be an MMO — Massively Multiplayer Online — lots of people play against each other by Internet. Dave Georgesen of Sony Online Entertainment has watched these kinds of games spread using the so-called “free to play” model, where you can start without buying it. And, a new academic study shows it’s quite easy to identify someone by tracking their movements digitally. Researchers writing in Scientific Reports conclude all they need is four pieces of location data to figure out who most people are. Among the implications: When companies gather location data without names and addresses that doesn’t necessarily protect privacy.
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