Storm8, the game app development company that was sued earlier this month by an iPhone owner who had accused the company of illegally harvesting cellphone numbers has now publicly responded to the accusation.
Storm8 is the developer of popular game apps like iMobsters and Vampires Live.
In a recent post made on the website's forum, the company elaborates the reasons why the cellphone numbers were pulled in the first place and how the lawsuit filed against the company lacked any merit.
The company writes
"We determined that these numbers were being collected as the result of legacy code (old, obsolete code) in the games. The legacy code had been included early in the software development process as a potential way for Storm8 to identify specific devices; however, we later determined it was more suitable to use the device’s Unique Device ID instead. Once Storm8 was alerted to this issue in August, we immediately took voluntary, proactive steps to satisfy our user community and we quickly made available updated versions of our games without that legacy code"
Storm8 claims that while the numbers that were inadvertently collected through the legacy code indeed existed in their database until they were destroyed in August of this year, they were in no way misused. And thus, the company says that the lawsuit filed against them lacked merit.
Folks at ReadWriteWeb point out that the laws are actually in Storm8's favor. Until the complainants are able to prove that they suffered damages as a result of Storm8's actions, the company does not stand to be penalized.
However, a greater worry the company faces right now is its damaged reputation among the users as well as the fact that Apple has temporarily disabled the sale of their games from the App Store. Storm8 has said that the company is working with Apple to resolve the issue so that their apps can be back on the iPhone App Store.
That is unlikely to happen until the verdict from the Courts are out, which is probably the reason the company has been asking for the lawsuit to be retracted. We will keep you updated on this front.
Having said that, do you trust in Storm8's claim that cellphone numbers that were harvested was merely a case of overlooked obsolete code than anything else? Would you back the game developers at this stage? Please voice your opinion in the comments section below.
[Storm8 Forums via ReadWriteWeb]
that's so bullshit what the company is claiming
They were planning on stealing up until they got caught red handed. It took them this long to come up with that answer.
Storm responded to this quite a while back in their forums. That response was due to a complaint from a disgruntled World War player. Get real people just somebody looking for a quick buck and to cause a hassle for a company that made changes in its game. Restore the app and move on.
There games are quality so I see no need for them to harvest they have constant updates on games a strong user base which alone is enough for a good profit margin for the company I'm apped already so I hope they put it back on for new users
Obsolete code my ass, they new the code was still there.
They should have said the following:
"however, we later determined it was more suitable to use the device’s Unique Device ID instead. Once Storm8 was found out to be using this process in August, we though we'd better remove it we won't make anymore $$$$".
They are full of it… they thought Phonebook entries were a better way to track a user then the UUID on the phone? BS can smell it from here.
Storm8 have stated that they new the legacy code to collect phone numbers was present at the start, it should not have been. I do not agree that any company should be collecting peoples data whatsoever. Without prior permission from the users. I also do not understand why an iphone user that discovered the legacy code in the application, would be decoding the software in the 1st place. What was he trying to gain from doing that !!