Storm8 responds to iPhone number harvesting lawsuit

At the start of the month we reported that the social game developer Storm8 was facing a federal lawsuit having been accused of writing software code in such a way that its games downloaded would automatically collect and transmit users' telephone numbers.

At the time, Storm8 refused to answer inquiries. Earlier this week, however, the company issued an official response to the accusations over its forums.

“You may recall that in August 2009, some users noted that Storm8 games contained software code that for some users collected mobile phone numbers upon opening the application for our massively multiplayer online role‐playing games (MMORPGs).

"However, Storm8 was not using those numbers for any purpose. Nor did we ever provide them to any other company”, a company spokesperson said.

“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.”

The gist of their statement is that Storm8 believes itself to have done nothing wrong knowingly and will consequently, “ask the judge to dismiss the lawsuit in its entirety due to the lawsuit’s complete lack of merit.”

Replies from iPhone users in wake of Storm8’s statement are mixed. While some are pleased with the developer’s response, others understandably remain sceptical.

We'll all just have to wait for the judge’s final verdict.