Cellphone Number Harvesting Result Of Obsolete Code - Storm8 Says Lawsuit Lacks Merit
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]
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