Why origin..

"invisiblgirl;c-17062246" wrote:

"nerdfashion;c-17061935" wrote:
@Cinebar that's just... how did you even get that information... that's so creepy, especially for the kids who play...

There are laws regarding what data can be collected from children. I'm generally not too worried about data-sharing - they don't share personally-identifiable data (such as your actual name, address or credit card number). What companies generally share is data about the web sites your log-in or IP visits, especially shopping sites, your zip code and any general information you've given them, such as your age range and income range. Any professional web site will have a statement regarding what they are sharing and in most cases, you can opt out. EA's says:

We do not share personal information that directly identifies you (such as your name, e-mail or postal address) with third parties for their own use without your consent, unless it is either required by law or we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our rights, property or operations or to protect our players or third parties. We may share anonymous or aggregated information, or other data that does not directly identify you, with third parties, for instance your persona and game stats on leaderboards or to show trends about use of our products.
We employ third parties located in and outside of your country of residence (including outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)) to collect or process personal information on our behalf for various reasons, such as conducting market surveys, facilitating credit card processing, or sending emails. When our third party agents or service providers collect or receive personal information, we require that they use the data only on our behalf and for purposes consistent with this policy.

Obviously, they have to share personally-identifiable information with your credit card company.

And yes, Origin does function to prevent piracy. From EA's privacy statement:

When you log in to one of our products, set up an EA Account or make purchases, we or third parties may use cookies and similar technologies, or collect data about your machine or device, to create a machine "fingerprint" or "hash" of your machine components, for fraud prevention, security and authentication purposes. We also may use anti-cheat technology with our products, including automated anti-fraud and abuse algorithms.