Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 10/17 - When is Cheating At Video Games a Crime?

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

Google bows to the EU’s demands, the biggest thing to happen to Github since the pull request, video game cheaters are getting sued, and Facebook brings back MTV’s The Real World.  Links: Google will start charging Android device makers a fee for using its apps in Europe (The Verge) GitHub launches Actions, its workflow automation tool (Github) Fortnite, GTA V hackers face legal action for online cheating (Ars Technica) It turns out that Facebook could in fact use data collected from its Portal in-home video device to target you with ads (Recode) MTV is bringing back 'The Real World' for Facebook Watch, and will let the audience vote on the direction of the show (Business Insider) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech Memeeride Home for Wednesday, October 17th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Google bows to the EU's demands.

The biggest thing to happen to GitHub since pool requests, video game cheaters are getting sued, and Facebook brings back MTV's The Real World. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Responding to that EU antitrust ruling from earlier this year, Google has announced that it is changing, the licensing terms for Android, effective October 29th, for devices sold in the EU anyway. Before we dig into what's changing, let's remember how we got here.

Google has traditionally made its Android operating system available for free to device makers as long as those device makers did one of two things. Either they bundled in the Google Play Store, plus a variety of key apps, including Chrome, search and Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube, or the device makers could bundle none of those apps and just take the operating system, an option that is quite popular in China. The idea behind this bundling strategy

is that most device makers in the U.S. and EU would simply just go ahead and include everything because users typically want access to those nice Google things. And that's good for Google. Google makes ad revenue from search and YouTube and Gmail plus direct sales revenue from the Play Store, and it gets valuable data from Google Maps, and Chrome usage.

So bundling all these apps helps fund the ongoing development of Android and keeps the software free for device makers. Of course, there have always been prominent device makers that chose the no bundled apps route, even in the U.S. Amazon made a fork of Android and called it FireOS, designed for its Kindle FireTal Firetablets, fire devices, and other gadgets like the Gone Too Soon Firephone. But after the EU, find Google roughly $5 billion in July. for its all-or-nothing bundling practices,

Google has now responded with a third option for device makers, selling products in the EU market. They can make a device using Android and bundle the Play Store and apps like Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube if the device maker pays a licensing fee. That way, if the device maker chooses, they can add Chrome and Google Search on top of that for free, but it's not required.

This seems like a technically correct response to what EU regulators demanded. It removes the required bundling of Chrome and Search, but it's going to create some interesting ripple effects because of the licensing fee for the core app bundle. For instance, let's say your Samsung. You can now ship a Galaxy device in the EU that has the Play Store and the basic bundle of Google apps.

You pay Google a fee to get that bundle. So to recoup that fee, you leave out Chrome and ship some other web browser, getting the browser maker to pay you for the privilege, perhaps. You also use a different search provider, and again, they pay you. Users can still manually install Chrome and search if they want, though, through the Play Store, but getting kickbacks for a third-party browser and search provider might offset whatever fees Google will charge for access to the Play Store.

Incidentally, Google has not yet announced what the licensing fees will actually be for this stuff, just that there will be fees. This also opens the door for handset makers to make multiple flavors of the the same device using different software bundles, something that previously wasn't allowed under Google's licensing terms. And that is also potentially a huge deal, quoting Jacob Kasternakis and Nilai Patel at the verge. So if Samsung wants to ship both the regular Galaxy S-9 with Google's Play Store and some Wackadoo Galaxy phone that runs, say, Amazon's FireOS, it can now do that in Europe, end quote. So that's what's interesting. What if consumers

could pay less for a galaxy device without any Google apps. That would be bad for Google because they're cut out of the revenue picture entirely, but it's unclear whether it would be good for consumers because they'd end up with a mishmash of apps provided by the highest bidders to the device maker. And that's what much of the online reaction to this has been so far. Here's a roundup of some relevant tweets. Tom Warren, senior editor at The Verge tweeted, Google makes a lot of revenue from developers that publish apps to its store.

Now it wants device makers to pay to access it to for devices in the EU. All this does is hurt consumers. Get ready for devices bundled with apps so device makers can get the license fee cost back. Google's new licensing fee for Android in Europe is a clear admission. It's not open source and free. You pay with your data or you pay with a license fee. Google has slowly transformed Android as we know it into proprietary software, end quote. Owen Williams tweeted,

Crikey, Google's relenting in Europe. Android is going to cost money, and they're stripping out the licenses for Google Search and Chrome. This actually might be really bad for the ecosystem, end quote. And Steven Sinovsky, former head of Windows for Microsoft, had this zinger. This all sounds so familiar. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Yesterday, GitHub announced a bunch of new features at its GitHub Universe event. One that particularly caught the eye is called Actions. And GitHub reps liken it to the new shortcuts feature in iOS 12. For developers using GitHub, this is a big deal. GitHub actions allow developers

to package up snippets of code that will run on GitHub when certain actions trigger them. So let's say a developer commits a piece of code to your repository. That can trigger an action to run your automated test suite then compile and bundle a distribution package if the tests pass.

Or let's say somebody uses the urgent tag on a piece of code that can trigger a notification, like a text message through Twilio, alerting relevant developers or support staff. Previously, this kind of, let's run some code stuff, had to live on a separate server maintained by your DevOps team, and it wasn't proactive. You couldn't trigger build and test cycles so easily. By building this into the core GitHub product, GitHub is positioning itself not just as a repository for code, but as a cloud computing resource for testing that code and even managing deployment. The actions feature is currently in limited public beta, and GitHub says that it will allow the community to contribute actions just like they commit source code on GitHub today.

GitHub head of platform Sam Lambert said actions are, quote, the biggest thing we've done since the pool request. Owen Williams agreed, tweeting GitHub actions looks. fantastic. The first-party pipeline I've always wanted in almost every engineering org, full automation after you commit code. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica reports on a pair of lawsuits over video game cheating. In the first, Rockstar and Take 2, the companies behind Grand Theft Auto 5, have gotten an Australian court to freeze the assets of five people who allegedly created cheating software called infamous. Beyond freezing their assets, law enforcement have warrants to search the homes and computers of those five people, one of whom is identified only by the rather embarrassing gamer handle Sphincta.

Yes, that name was really used in the legal complaint. At issue is a mod menu provided by the infamous software, allowing users to do all kinds of wild stuff in the world of Grand Theft Auto 5, both in offline and more importantly, online modes. part of the software allows users to create virtual currency online, which could put the game's microtransaction-based economy at risk. In the second such case, reported on by Ars Technica, Epic Games filed a federal lawsuit in North Carolina

against several YouTubers who make videos using Fortnite mods. Epic claims that Brandon Lucas, the primary defendant, uses his YouTube videos to, quote, demonstrate and promote the hacks he sells, and to direct those who watch the videos to the website where he sells them. The complaint also includes this epic line, no pun intended. Quote, defendants are cheaters. Nobody likes a cheater and nobody likes playing with cheaters, end quote. So these two cases, while they're just getting started, should get to the heart of a

vital question. When is cheating at a game actually illegal and not just annoying? We'll have to watch as the courts sort out the legal issues associated with violating end user agreement. the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and so on. But be warned, cheaters, the gaming companies have decided to come for you. Even you, Sphincta. Remember that Facebook portal hardware device, that Facebook wants you to put in your home for video calls? Well, at the time of the announcement of the portal,

Facebook told reporters that no data collected through portal would be used to target users with ads. of course a week later now they're like jk jk of course we're going to use data from portal to target users with ads of course we're Facebook specifically this is the new line

a Facebook spokesperson has given to Kurt Wagner over at recode quote portal voice calling is built on the messenger infrastructure so when you make a video call on portal we collect the same types of information i.e usage data such as length of calls frequency of calls that we collect on other messenger-enabled devices. We may use this information to inform the ads we show you across our platforms, end quote.

Wagner went on to write at Recode, quote, that isn't what was conveyed when we spoke to Facebook executives at Portal's launch. But in a follow-up call with Rafa Camargo, the product VP in charge of Portal, he apologized for sharing inaccurate info and said that while this data can technically be used, used for ad targeting, he doesn't know if it will be, end quote. So given that, this news is something. A source is telling Cheddar that Facebook is also building a hybrid video chat slash TV set top box, which it plans to announce in spring of next year. The device, codenamed Ripley, quote, uses the same core technology as Facebook's recently announced portal video chat device for the home.

Aside from Ripley's video chat features, the device could provide Facebook an avenue to compete with the likes of Apple, Roku, and Amazon for attention on TVs. Facebook's own watch video service is included with Portal, and the company has said that it intends to add more streaming services over time, end quote. So a couple things here. First, doesn't it feel like nobody is really steering the Facebook ship at the moment? there hasn't been a single scandal, kerfuffle, news item, or even feature release from the company over the last few months that hasn't seemed muddled, at least in the messaging. One hand just doesn't seem to know what the other hand even knows at Facebook. It's beginning to feel like there are multiple fiefdoms inside the company, and some of them are hawkish, and some are dovish. Some are full speed ahead. Let's continue to be Facebook, damn it.

or maybe everyone in Portnett, Facebook is still like that. It's just that some of them have to pretend to be dovish and contrite and understanding on occasion. Second, as the almost universal reaction to this on Twitter suggests, these products are dead on arrival, right? Doesn't Facebook know that? I get that this home assistant slash home portal thingy is a space. Seemingly, everyone in tech feels like they have to be a player in. but still, can't Facebook see that their past missteps might have disqualified them for this particular race?

And I know that sucks, but hey, you know, breaking stuff can have consequences. I've heard for years that the key culturally formative moment for Facebook was back when the news feed was launched and everybody rebelled vehemently against it. In David Kirkpatrick's book about Facebook, he quote, Chris Cox is saying that if users didn't want newsfeed, it confounded Mark Zuckerberg's whole theory about what Facebook was. If newsfeed wasn't right, he felt we shouldn't even be doing Facebook itself, end quote. And it turned out Zuckerberg was right to barge ahead and do it anyway. Newsfeed was absolutely Facebook's killer app. And the users were wrong.

Facebook could see that in their own usage data. They could see that no matter how much users professed to hate news, news feed, they actually loved it because they couldn't stop using it. The thesis from people who have pointed to this story over the years is that this was the moment when Facebook's entire product development ethos was formed. We know what's best for users. They may complain at first, but just keep pushing it at them and eventually they'll like it. If a product or feature fits our larger mission for this company as we see it, users be damned. I feel like though, there's a danger here of Facebook making a classic incumbent's mistake.

Sometimes companies discover a way of doing business that works spectacularly well for them until it doesn't. But after having had so much success with this one trick that they discovered, a lot of companies refuse to give up on that trick, even when the trick suddenly doesn't work anymore. Steve Balmer inculcated the notion that Microsoft was a platform play so deeply that he came to believe that Microsoft wasn't a software company so much as it was a Windows company, full stop. Balmer believed in Microsoft's one great trick long after it stopped working.

The danger is that if you play your one trick, too many times you become a one-trick pony. Either the powers that be inside Facebook are willfully blind to the fact that their one trick no longer works or else certain people know that what has always worked for Facebook isn't working anymore,

but they don't know how to do things any other way, and so they're flailing. Either way, and given the high-profile powers that be who have jumped ship recently, if you're a Facebook fan, this is very concerning. Facebook either needs the remaining staff inside the company to start thinking differently, or they need to get some new blood inside that company

that can start thinking differently, and they need to do so, probably sooner rather than later. And finally today, in news that is probably very related to the previous segment, MTV's reality show, The Real World, will return, and it will be exclusive to Facebook Watch, that tab in your Facebook app that you accidentally hit now and again and get frustrated by. And it's related to the previous segment because it's probably coming soon to the Facebook video devices that we just talked about. premiering in 2019, three new seasons of the real world will appear in Facebook Watch,

produced specifically for the platform and using social features like the ability to vote on the cast through Facebook. The show will air weekly episodes and have versions localized for the U.S., Mexico, and Thailand. Facebook plans to use features like Facebook Live and Watch Party to promote both the show and those features and will post daily clips from each week's 30-minute episode. And there will be ads, of course. Facebook recently added support for reserved buying of pre-roll and mid-roll ads on premium Facebook watch shows. MTV hopes this will introduce the ultra-long-running show to a newer generation of viewers. Personally, I remember when the show debuted in 1992 on actual television very, very well.

Back when we had no idea, we were engaging with brands to monetize our social graph. Now, get off my lawn, you kids. That's all for today. The show was written by myself and Chris Higgins. You can follow Chris on Twitter at Chris Higgins. You can follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC. And, of course, if you were so inclined, you can pre-order my book, How the Internet Happened, which comes out on Tuesday.

Talk to you all tomorrow.