Verant Interactive, de makers van Everquest, stoppen met het scannen van de PC's van de spelers. In de laatste patch was een optie toegevoegd die het mogelijk maakte de pc te scannen op mogelijk cheatprogramma's voor het populaire online spel. Verant Interactive has told the Adrenaline Vault it would stop scanning the computers of EverQuest users to determine if files are present that could enable a person to cheat. The most recent patch for EverQuest raised security concerns because it allowed Verant to examine users' hard drives, and because the license agreement included with the patch stated that Verant could share the information with third parties. “We owe an apology to our customers. In our haste to try and thwart people from damaging the game, we went overboard,” John Smedley, president and CEO of Verant told the Adrenaline Vault. Verant conducted a poll of 15,000 people in response to user complaints, and reported that 83 percent of those polled had no problem with Verant scanning users' computers to prevent cheating. Despite these results, Smedley said the company has decided it is the wrong thing to do. “Enough people have convinced us that it's chipping away a little too much at people's privacy even if they do consent for us to implement this policy,” the CEO acceded. Therefore, the license agreement will now read that users grant the company permi ion to upload game file information from the EverQuest directory, and download new files for the purpose of patching and updating the game. “We should have had this language in there from day one for users to even download new game files in the first place. We apologize for not realizing we should have gotten this consent, but live and learn,” Smedley said. Watch this space for a follow-up story on how Verant intends to deal with potential cheating, and when this new policy will go into effect. Big brother is watching you