An attorney firm is investigating a Privacy Violation from several EA titles, including The Sims FreePlay.
You may be eligible for a financial compensation if you’ve played The Sims FreePlay in the course of the last two years. The ClassAction.org website has published a new list of “Video Game Lawsuits & Investigations” for breaching federal laws. One of them being The Sims FreePlay, which according to the Milberg law firm has put an illegal tracker behind the scenes to track data and harvest personal player information.
The website has listed several titles for breaching the privacy law including EA.com, EA Sports FC Mobile, Madden NFL, EA UFC Mobile 2 and The Sims FreePlay. Among other video game companies such as Ubisoft and the developers behind PubG Mobile.
The Sims FreePlay Lawsuit
Law firm Milberg is pursuing arbitration claims against Electronic Arts for using special software to track player activities and sharing such data with third parties without giving users an option to consent.
In The Sims FreePlay, which is available to download for free on the App Store, Google Play and Amazon Appstore, the possibilities are endless. You can put on a cabaret, grow a family, fall in love and even build a superyacht. But is it also possible that Facebook and Meta are collecting data about you and how you interact with the game?
Attorneys working with ClassAction.org have reason to believe EA Inc., publisher of the popular life-simulation game, may be using tracking tools on The Sims FreePlay app to secretly gather and transmit players’ personal information to Facebook for advertising purposes. This data potentially includes unique Facebook IDs, which can be used to match players’ in-game activities to their individual Facebook profiles. Attorneys suspect that these potential data-sharing practices may violate a federal privacy law and are now gathering players to take action.
Attorneys have started collecting data from players who have downloaded and played The Sims FreePlay on their phones in the last two years. Milberg believes that EA has collected data from players using the Meta Pixel software to harness data from players and sell it to the Meta company, who owns Instagram, Facebook and other social networks.
According to the Class Action form linked here, players who submit their report and are eligible in the listed criteria may also be financially compensated on behalf of Milberg, who is pursuing legal actions in the forefront of other players.
Thank you for your interest. Milberg is pursuing arbitration claims against Electronic Arts, the maker of the Sims Free Play game, for using the Meta Pixel to track the activities of account holders and share them with third parties (including Meta), all without users’ consent. We believe this is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
If this happened to you, we believe you may be eligible to receive compensation for your damages. Milberg can pursue these claims on your behalf.
Lawsuit against EA
There’s a seperate general lawsuit investigation happening for Electronic Arts for several of their games. Specifically the ones that include in-game cutscenes. Read more below:
Electronic Arts, the publisher behind The Sims, Medal of Honor, Battlefield and EA Sports titles FIFA, NBA Live and more, is being investigated by attorneys for potential violations of a federal privacy law.
They believe EA.com may be secretly sharing consumers’ purchase information with Facebook via tracking tools, which could give the social media giant insight into players’ interests and activities for advertising purposes. It’s possible that this purchase data—specifically, for video games that include cutscenes—may be covered under the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, and the attorneys are now gathering gamers to take legal action against EA.
The entire arbitration claim and user report can be done through this link. If you want to contribute to this legal investigation and get compensated for an alleged privacy breach from EA, now’s the time!
What are your thoughts on the potential shady practices done by EA and The Sims FreePlay? Do you believe EA has sold your data to Meta? Join the discussion in the comments down below!
News tip: @t0nischwartz