EA: Inactive Origin accounts won't be deleted
That mysterious part of Origin's terms of service saying EA could delete accounts left idle for two years? Nothing to worry about, EA says. No accounts with games will be deleted, only those left maliciously idle.
The Internet was all in arms yesterday after eagle-eyes spotted a line in Origin's terms of service stating that EA could delete accounts after two years of inactivity: "If you have not used your Entitlements or Account for twenty four (24) months or more and your Account has associated Entitlements, your Entitlements will expire and your Account may be cancelled for non-use."
Turns out, there's nothing to worry about, and nobody risks losing their games.
The cancellation clause exists only to protect against nebulous "misuse" of the digital platform, EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg explained in a statement provided to Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
The Origin terms of service are designed to protect against misuse of the Origin system. No Origin user who has paid entitlements and/or downloaded games will have their account cancelled or games expired due to extended non-use. The term regarding account cancellation for non-use is designed to guard against creation of non-active accounts for inappropriate reasons.
The Internet, you may now speculate on how exactly one might use inactive accounts for malicious purposes. A famous "no prize" to the most novel idea.
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Alice O'Connor posted a new article, EA: Inactive Origin accounts won't be deleted.
That mysterious part of Origin's terms of service saying EA could delete accounts left idle for two years? Nothing to worry about, EA says. No accounts with games will be deleted, only those left maliciously idle.-
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EA isn't silly (in this case), it's the write up. EA is basically saying if someone was to create a whole bunch of accounts with no intent to use them, presumably for some failed weird botting attempt, those accounts would be deleted. Which basically clears up the loophole for people who create account for botting purposes but never actually succeed because if you succeed then I assume EA has an abuse of the system reason for deleting your account.
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No, the language in the original TOS deserved the criticism. They could have narrowed the language to specifically cover malicious use, but they did not.
What they did was specifically state that being inactive was grounds for deletion. The reaction was fair, though I'm of course glad to see that's not apparently what they meant.
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I'm not trying to defend EA as a whole but origin seems alright to me right now. It registered my copy of swtor when I entered it into swtor.com so origin hasn't wronged me yet. I contacted support a few times regarding a different version I pre-ordered and eventually canceled and I got my money back no problem.
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Actually, a bunch of us have replied that this is an entirely differently worded clause. The Origin Terms of Service already contain the clause that they can delete your account for whatever reason at whatever time, just like every competitor, so why would they need this second one suggesting that idle accounts will be deleted wholesale?
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Seriously though start posting here http://www.shacknews.com/chatty
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You can pick up the Orange Box on Origin right here: http://store.origin.com/DRHM/store?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&SiteID=ea&Locale=en_US&productID=81565900
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