Many were stunned when EA announced that Battlefield 2142 would have in-game advertising billboards, provided by IGA Interactive. Now it turns out that the game includes monitoring software (read: spyware) that tracks your IP address and surfing hobbits, so ad-companies can display “targeted ads”. Some suggest however, that this software only runs while you’re playing the game, and not while generally surfing the Internet.

IGA Worldwide stated to Joystiq that if you don’t want the spyware to run on your computer, don’t play or install the game. It’s as simple as that. Furthermore, they state on their website that “70% of gamers [are] saying that advertisements inside computer and video games help improve the realism of the gaming experience”. Which is complete bulls**t, to say the least.

For us living in countries with decent privacy laws (e.g. Europe), there is little to do since the “servers” are located in places where this kind of actions are allowed (e.g. USA).

I’ll be reviewing the game here on DigitalBattle soon, and this will certainly be taken into consideration.