Oh man.. probably should have passed laws to regulate data harvesting and digital privacy back in the 90s
when the Internet was still just a series of tubes...
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Oh man.. probably should have passed laws to regulate data harvesting and digital privacy back in the 90s
when the Internet was still just a series of tubes...
Oh no, not only the very ethical American companies get my data?
What a disaster.
Wait until you find out that Saudi Arabia have a big stake in Disney, Facebook and OpenAI.
Unpaywalled link is convenient but so do consider subscribing if you want to support this kind of journalism :
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Remember when the US was going to make them into a "pariah state"?
Thinks changed quickly when you could sell them $350,000,000,000 worth of murder stuff didn't it?
Made a lot less waves back then.
Priorities I guess.
I’d imagine this isn’t going to stop anyone from using it though.
Tell me again how tik tok is a Chinese spy network? When they can just BUY our information like this?
Saudi Arabia isn't a person. I hate it when news titles aren't specific enough. Is it the government that bought them? A private company? Just a dude that happens to be Saudi? The implications can change drastically based on who bought it.
Also the article link isn't working for me so all i got is the title. And as most people that'd see it, they'd also only read the title, this type of simplification can lead to a lot of misinformation. Or worse, racism, as you combine a whole country and its people to one entity which is dehumanizing. I'm speaking from experience as a Saudi person who's always grouped with the "saudi" or "Arabic " or "brown" groups instead of another human being.
In short, news should stop generalizing and be more specific, especially in the titles, the part that most people will interact with.
Saudi Arabia isn’t a person.
Yes, it is. In an autocratic monarchy, in a dictatorship, everything belongs to the king. The house of Saud is treating the country as their personal property and let's not pretend that anything would prevent the guy who killed a journalist in his embassy from accessing that data.
unpaywalled: https://archive.is/7yc9S
A Saudi Arabian company that was created by the Saudi Arabian government just purchased Pokémon Go
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Investment_Fund
If you can't see the article i will paste it for you.
I'm speaking from experience as a Saudi person who's always grouped with the "saudi" or "Arabic " or "brown" groups instead of another human being.
So am i, and i'm also sick of it and the people who use this to fuel discrimination. I see this article as more of a reason to hate the sauds, not saudi people.
I mean, if it's in Saudi Arabia you know the royal family is in full control, so in this it kind of makes sense
A country that investing in any successful product doesn't mean they want your data. If they are interested they can buy it directly from any large organization and if must they can use spy ware or other means of intelligence.
If you have privacy concern, you have bigger issue than a game that is for all we know is dying game.
Saudi Arabia? I remember about 10 or so years ago that Saudi Arabia had banned Pokemon because "it promotes materialism".
What changed?
Money.
After MBS became the de-facto leader (after some purges, to centralize all the power to himself) he started "liberalizing" and giving us more freedoms. It's all bullshit.
Women weren't even allowed to drive four years ago. That was probably the only good thing he gave us.
Saudi Govt: So MbS, what are we doing this week?
MbS: Well, first we’re gonna buy Pokémon Go, and if THAT goes well, then we’ll try to negotiate peace for Ukraine.
Saudi Govt: Priorities, Crowned Prince Mohammed. 💪
Lol everyone owns your data except for you
Haven't played the game in years, and wasn't aware of any of this. People discussing "What's worse, Saudi Arabia or Niantic?" feels positively dystopian.
Yay, capitalism.
The scene in Austin Powers when he first comes out of cryo and assumes the communists won the cold war makes a lot more sense to me as an adult
I'm glad I never played that game. Call me old fashioned but I prefer the original Pokemon games on the Gameboy, that's all I ever played. It was fun going to friends' houses and gatherings and trading Pokemon over Link cable. Fun times.
I'm a level 50 Pokémon Go player, who has played since release day, and that's the app deleted.
Next up will be requesting removal of my data under GDPR.
Yet another good thing ruined by the Saudi government. Why can't we have nice things? :(
I don’t disagree with the sentiment but PoGo has been pretty trash for a while now
Scopely is the company that bought Pokemon Go (and others). Scopely was not created by the Saudi Arabian Government as the article states. It was created in the US. But was purchased by Savvy Games (A Saudi Arabian company) in 2023. It still operates independently and is based in the US. Though I do admit they probably report up all the way. Scopely is also the developer of Monopoly Go.
A developer made Monopoly Go? All I need to know about them.
I've tried some of scopely's games. They're following this playbook to the letter.
You'll be getting freebies when your friends spend cash. You'll get time limited offers. You'll be paying to "try again", against other players.
Who wins when a wall street broker and an oil sheikh use their wallets to fight over a Pokémon gym? Scopely wins.
Time to never use any of their products again
I guess I’m glad I had a windows phone during the Pokémon go craze