Game engines and data collection

[LameNick]

Hi, I wanted to try out Unity 3d and have been reading their https://unity3d.com/legal/privacy-policy. Maybe someone here might be able to tell me if I understood one point referring to usage of software built with Unity - Does every game build with it, every time its run, send a detailed hardware fingerprint of the user's device including OS and IP to Unity? Meaning, there is no way to build an app with Unity that doesn't send information about everyone who uses it?
I find that quite unsettling, if that's so.

Also was wondering, does AGS collect any information?

[Crimson Wizard]

Also was wondering, does AGS collect any information?

AGS has been collecting some anonymous statistics (which could be turned off in preferences), but that is currently disabled because of the server issues.
It included:
* OS name and version;
* version of installed .NET framework;
* desktop resolution;
* version of AGS.
server also was able to distinguish IPs which sent these, if I remember correctly.

These statistics were quite interesting, as they allowed to know average number of users of each AGS version, and knowing their system let predict whether it's safe to stop supporting old ones if a need arises.

Additionally, it was sending editor crash reports, which also included screenshot of the AGS editor window at the time of crash; but this is also disabled now for the same reason (and iirc screenshots were disabled separately for privacy reasons).

[LameNick]

Thanks for reply CW. But things that are compiled with AGS don't ever try to access internet, at least not by default, right?

[Stupot]

Additionally, it was sending editor crash reports, which also included screenshot of the AGS window at the time of crash.

Thank Christ I didn’t make that interactive voyeurism sim I was thinking about.

[Crimson Wizard]

Thanks for reply CW. But things that are compiled with AGS don't ever try to access internet, at least not by default, right?

No engine nor games themselves don't have any network code whatsoever atm, so they don't send anything anywhere.

[morganw]

Additionally, it was sending editor crash reports, which also included screenshot of the AGS window at the time of crash.

Thank Christ I didn’t make that interactive voyeurism sim I was thinking about.

The screenshot taking was removed because the screenshots included more than just AGS related windows. I think releases of 3.5 and newer should be safe. I wouldn't run any releases older than these without first checking that the change has gone into the older branch and releases: even though sending the screenshot would fail because the server side isn't there, the data which makes up the screenshot would still be in memory for a short time, the identify of the receving server was not verified in any meaningful way, and the data was not encrypted in transit.