http://www.razerzone.com/synapse2/privacy-policy
By using Razer Synapse 2.0 (Synapse), the Subscriber agrees that Razer may collect aggregate information, individual information, and personally identifiable information. Razer may share aggregate information and individual information with other parties. Razer shall not share personally identifiable information with other parties, except as described in the policy below.
More random crap at:
http://www.razerzone.com/synapse2/subscriber-agreement
People are paranoid. Who cares if they track what you do to make the products better. Do you think they are going to sell photos of you or turn you in to the Feds for stealing software?
Companies like Razer give us every right to be paranoid. I care if they track me. We are talking about a mouse here, not a piece of software like Photoshop CS6. This is a piece of hardware with extraneous software requirements, and it's ridiculous.
If you can't see that, then you're precisely the kind of consumer they expect to buy this garbage and put up with it.
By the way, the USB HID class for mice supports a nearly infinite amount of hardware buttons on the device itself. That means that you should be able to plug any mouse into your computer and expect that all the buttons "just work". This is how most Logitech mice operate.
Companies like Razer and Madcatz don't adhere to the USB HID spec completely though. They go out of their way to obfuscate the communication protocols their hardware uses so you need kernel level drivers and software packages just to make all the buttons work.
Why is this necessary? Why is it considered OK?
They can make a mouse that works out of the box with no software at all, but they chose not to. Instead, you've got to sign up for an online account for a friggin' mouse and agree to two separate EULAs before you can use the hardware you paid for. It's a mouse, give me a break.
What would you say if your printer, monitor, speakers, and keyboard all required separate online accounts to activate and operate? What would you say if each of those devices required drivers and software to operate that sat around in the background watching what you do so that company can "improve their products"? It's all just a big song and dance, they just want your information to sell it- hence the clauses in the TOS linked to above.
-SC
