On a WildTangent: Not all Fun and Games

WildTangent is the brainchild of Alex St. John, the superstar who developed DirectX technology at Microsoft. WildTangent began five years ago in Microsoft's Multimedia lab as a Web technology called Chrome. When Microsoft pulled the plug on Chrome, St. John and Jeremy Kenyon, a mathematician and computer systems expert, started working on their own version from scratch.

WildTangent streamlined 3D development, bringing development time down to three or four months for a two- or three-person team, as opposed to two years for 10 people or more. Their Web Driver uses unique compression technology to create virtual bandwidth, speeding up downloads and performance and creating richer multimedia content. It enables quick 3D graphics, sound, and animation in your browser regardless of connection speed, and it actually works! WildTangent has developed some stunning 3D games and screensavers. All you have to do to play is download the Web Driver, a free 860-KB browser plug-in currently available only for Windows.

What's the catch? WildTangent's Web Driver is a sophisticated variation of spyware. Although it isn't technically a Trojan horse, it works and behaves like one. In the background, it harvests information from a computer and transmits the data to WildTangent's Web servers. Web Driver litters Windows Registry with so many entries and your hard drive with so many files and folders that it's a real pain to get rid of them once it is installed. I know from personal experience! WildTangent's Web Driver embedded 63 spyware components on my computer in a single installation, and I had to resort to using System Restore to get rid of it. I document the gruesome details in Chapter 12.

Figure 9.8: The WildTangent Web Driver system requirements screen

According to WildTangent's own instructions, removal can take anywhere from 10 to more than 30 individual steps, including rebooting your computer and manually deleting files and folders from several locations (including the Windows directory). But if you're like me, you have zero trust in directions supplied by a company that has the gall to purposely install 63 spyware components in a single installation. I just did a search on Google using the phrase "WildTangent spyware" and got 275 hits in 15 seconds! There are horror stories galore from innocent of victims who hosed their computer systems trying to remove WildTangent components. There's even a Web page called "What The Hell Dammit!" (http://empireezine2.tripod.com/computers/whatthe-hell.html) that is devoted to removing WildTangent spyware.

Figure 9.9: What The Hell Dammit! Web site

How does WildTangent get away with it? With your permission, and therein lies the rub! In their zeal to download a new screensaver or free game, na ve computer novices click OK and unwittingly fritter away their right to privacy. WildTangent's user agreement reads more like a warning than a EULA.

Figure 9.10: The WildTangent EULA

WildTangent collects system information through their Web Driver, the software that works with your system configuration to optimize your games based on your particular system. This information is used to upgrade the Web Driver and better optimize Web Driver performance.

The information collected for this purpose includes

CPU speed and type
System memory
Video card configuration
Connection speed

WildTangent also collects game playing information through the Web Driver that is used to determine how users are interacting with the game to determine ways that games may be improved and what features users like and do not like.

The information collected for this purpose includes

Name of the game
Number of game launches
Number of new game starts
Time spent in game
What levels were accessed
Number of purchases versus demo plays
Where the game was downloaded from

WildTangent may share system and game playing information with select third parties on an anonymous basis from time to time.