14 DAY TRIAL // After the StarForce outcry, the Heroes of Might and Magic V community is again in uproar. There have been numerous complaints about a sneaky little known utility that sends out information from the player's PC to Ubisoft. When Heroes of Might and Magic V is being installed, it also copies two possibly related little files called SendStats.exe and UbiStats.dll, the former of which is detected by the firewall when attempting to connect to ubisoft.com.
When asked about it Ubisoft responded: "Sendstats.exe is a small program that runs only while the game is running, and sends limited information back to Ubisoft. This information includes stats on how long you play our games, how often, when, etc. I was told that no additional personal or private information is being collected nor transmitted.
According to the Heroes of Might and Magic V EULA (End User Licence Agreement) which must be agreed upon installation of the game, Ubisoft has the right to collect limited data based on user behavior. Details on Ubisoft's data collection policies are available HERE (Privacy Policy).
Obviously, if you do not wish to allow this application to connect back to our servers via your firewall program, this is your right. I hope this information helps."
However the main issue raised by the players is not the actual existence of Ubisoft's data gathering tool, but the company's unwillingness to fully explain exactly what information is being sent, what the term "limited data" encompasses. The main concern of gamers is the secrecy, the fact that the gathered data are encrypted before being sent to Ubisoft. This may be just a means to protect the data, but it is only reasonable to pretend that the information be made available to those it's collected from.
Let's hope Ubisoft does not follow Sony's rootkit example.