Online Gaming

My husband and i play an online game together. There is some uproar lately about the SOE EULA agreement. Here i will post the differences in part bewteen the agreement for North Americans and those in the EU countries. I am still digesting this information. The EULA agreement is that annoying little message where you click 'agree' you get every time you log on.

Both North American and EU agreements are duplicated in this part:
9. We cannot ensure that your private communications and other personally identifiable information will not be disclosed to third parties. For example, we may be forced to disclose information to the government or third parties under certain circumstances, or third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. Additionally, we can (and you authorize us to) disclose any information about you to private entities, law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to investigate or resolve possible problems or inquiries.

From here they diverge.

For North Americans, they get a continuation:
You acknowledge and agree that we may transfer such information (including, without limitation your personally identifiable information or personal data) to the United States or other countries or may share such information with our licensees and agents in connection with the Game. You agree that we may communicate with you via telephone, email and any similar technology for any purpose relating to the Game, the Software and any services or software which may in the future be provided by us or on our behalf. You expressly permit SOE to upload CPU, operating system, video card, sound card and memory information from your computer to analyze and optimize your Game experience, improve and maintain the Game and/or provide you with customer service.

For EU countries you get:

For persons in European Union countries, terms such as "personal information" refer to "personal data" as defined by the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (the "Directive"). We will not collect any personal data from you unless you provide it voluntarily by providing us with your freely given specific and informed consent. You acknowledge and agree that we may transfer such information (including, without limitation your personally identifiable information or personal data) to the United States or other countries or may share such information with our licensees and agents in connection with the Game; you should be aware that different laws and/or regulations may apply outside the European Union with respect to your personal data.

Then both agreements return to the duplicate:
Furthermore, if you request any technical support, you consent to our remote accessing and review of the computer you load the Software onto for purposes of support and debugging. You may choose to visit http://www.station.sony.com (" The Station "), SOE's web site, if The Station offers services such as a Game themed chat room or other services of interest to you. You are subject to the terms and conditions, privacy customs and policies of SOE while on The Station. Since we do not control other web sites and/or privacy policies of third parties, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the personal information you disclose to others. Solely for the purpose of patching and updating the Game and/or the Software and ensuring the integrity of the Game, you hereby grant us permission to: (i) upload Game related file information and data from your computer; and (ii) download Game files to you. You acknowledge that any and all character data is stored and is resident on our servers, and any and all communications that you make within the Game (including, but not limited to, messages solely directed at another player or group of players) traverse through our servers, may or may not be monitored by us or our agents, you have no expectation of privacy in any such communications and expressly consent to such monitoring of communications you send and receive.