Activision tracking staff baby data

I saw Jim Sterling's video about this yesterday, and now Eurogamer has reported in it.

At first I wondered if the story was an over-simplification of Activision's approach... perhaps things had been exaggerated? But... no. This is one of the creepiest things I can recall a company - any company! - doing.

Activision wrote:...the program is part of an attitude shift towards sharing private information with the company...

Activision wrote:I want them to have a healthy baby because it's great for our business experience...

Activision wrote:...Rather than having a baby who's in the neonatal ICU, where she's not able to focus much on work.

My god.

Activision in being banana splitish shocker.

What's more important than ~~a baby's health~~ a worker's productivity?

We're lucky the two align really

It's clearly strawberry floated up, and any company that has an employee with the title: "lead android vice president of global benefits" is clearly evil, but I don't really understand what Activision is even getting out of this?

If the data is anonymised (which the article says it is) then what use is the data to them, it seems like it would put a stop to most of their evil plans? They can't target people who are having difficult pregnancies and get rid of them or anything like that. If the sample set is small enough and the data is updated regularly then I guess it's probably easy enough to identify individuals from it (but then that isn't really anonymous data!)

My baby was in NICU. If my company had used it against me, I would have gone to a solicitor.

Songwriter wrote:My baby was in NICU. If my company had used it against me, I would have gone to a solicitor.

You would have been right to do so and the hit to the morale of everyone else at the company would be bloody huge.
I don't know how many people are willing to stick up for any company that is so uncaring towards its own staff as to put pressure on them at such an awful time. If they're willing to do that then surely they won't even blink at deciding everyone can have a pay cut or simply fire people for no reason just because they didn't hit some obviously ludicrous profit target.

I don't think expecting a company to treat staff with a bit of basic dignity and care is asking all that much but somehow some people think it's only hippy, flower power losers that think that because they obviously hate capitalism.

PostRe: Activision tracking staff baby data by KK » Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:04 pm

For each day of use, employees reportedly receive a $1 (£0.76) gift card from Activision Blizzard, and the company in turn gets to view the combined anonymous statistics.

Considering how much market research companies usually dish out, they really are taking the piss here. And considering "gift card" is 9 times out of 10 a euphemism for "Amazon", it's probably another way of saving even more money. Stingy gits.

If the likes of YouGov (bank transfer) and NewVista (cheque in the mail) can do it legitimately, what's Activision's excuse for doling out gift cards.

‘It’s all a matter of ~~player~~ employee choice!’

Fuxache.

For context, US maternity is basically 4 weeks unpaid, get back to work or you are fired.

Capitalism :datass:

Moggy wrote:Capitalism

The International Workers' Games Development Bureau won't track its volunteers' pregnancies, that's for sure.

Gamburo now!

Roonmastor wrote:For context, US maternity is basically 4 weeks unpaid, get back to work or you are fired.

America, the land of the free.

:roll:

Roonmastor wrote:For context, US maternity is basically 4 weeks unpaid, get back to work or you are fired.

That's actually disgusting.

Mafro wrote:
Roonmastor wrote:For context, US maternity is basically 4 weeks unpaid, get back to work or you are fired.

That's actually disgusting.

Many US conservatives have been almost completely brainwashed into thinking that they have to think about being at work at all times (the fabled US work ethic) or risk being fired for laziness.
They will claim asking for reasonable holiday and maternity entitlement is unamerican and will cause mass job losses because even though companies are making record profits they can never afford those things.
It's really odd to see the same people arguing that CEO's and the President can have loads of holidays and ludicrous pay while arguing that raising the minimum wage and asking for 5 paid weeks holiday a year is financially crippling.

Corazon de Leon

I think it’s 12 weeks unpaid leave, though maternity benefits are generally different from state to state and even company to company. Maternity benefit in the US is one of the lowest in the western world, which as Maf says is absolutely disgusting.

Corazon de Leon wrote:I think it’s 12 weeks unpaid leave, though maternity benefits are generally different from state to state and even company to company. Maternity benefit in the US is one of the lowest in the western world, which as Maf says is absolutely disgusting.

It’s especially bad that the same people that would ban abortion are the same people that would happily get rid of all maternity rights.

Moggy wrote:
Corazon de Leon wrote:I think it’s 12 weeks unpaid leave, though maternity benefits are generally different from state to state and even company to company. Maternity benefit in the US is one of the lowest in the western world, which as Maf says is absolutely disgusting.

It’s especially bad that the same people that would ban abortion are the same people that would happily get rid of all maternity rights.

It's enough to make you think that a large percentage of the legislature is men with no respect for women.

Activision tracking staff baby data

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