Epic Games founder Tim Sweeny denies giving data to the Chinese government

tech2 News StaffDec 31, 2018 11:08:09 IST

Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, is being accused of giving out data to the Chinese government, but the founder Tim Sweeny has denied the allegations saying that Epic does not "share it (data), sell it, or broker access to it for advertising."

The news was broken on Reddit by a user who alleged the company of being a spyware. "Epic Games Store is literal spyware. They're not even trying to hide it," the user said.

The post has been upvoted about 30,000 times.

He went on to describe their terms of service and explaining how it provides the right to monitor a player and send the data to their parent company. Epic Games' parent company is Tencent.

Fortnite has over 125 mn monthly active users. Image: Epic Games

The user said that Tencent has been known for working hand in hand with the Chinese government, and drew a conclusion that Epic was owned by the Chinese government.

Sweeny responded saying that he is "the founder and controlling shareholder of Epic and would never allow this to happen."

Looking at part of the TOS, that the Reddit user was referring to, in his post, the news that the company gave data to the Chinese government is just an assumption. There is no fact in evidence to prove that. Nothing has been revealed that holds Epic guilty yet.

Only recently, Epic Games reportedly posted a profit of $3 billion. The details were apparently revealed to TechCrunch by an unnamed source.

Epic Games has not yet responded to the report. As noted by TechCrunch, Epic Games is a private company and does not disclose earnings.

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