In case you hadn't heard already, Electronic Arts' Origin is more than just a petty attempt to undermine Steam. It's an insidious petty attempt to undermine Steam. The service has upset gamers since it reserves the right to act like Spyware, allowing EA to dig around in your hard drive as explicitly stated in the terms of service.

The EULA says that EA can identify your computer, operating system, installed/uninstalled software/hardware, and use that information for marketing purposes while merrily sharing it with third party companies. It's all fairly disgusting, and there's no opt-out offer. If you don't want EA to know everything about you and pass the information along, your only recourse is to not install Origin -- which will mean you can't play Battlefield 3 on PC at all.

Reddit, known for its anger over everything, is naturally furious over this one, and is organizing the masses to complain. It's certainly a complaint I can get behind. Origin was already an annoying waste of time, but this nasty little parasitism takes it to a whole new level of sleaze. Origin really can slurp the interior of every anus in town.