Nintendo has announced that it will be launching a beta version of the Wii’s Opera web browser this Friday. The browser will be available for free on the Shop Channel, and will make surfing the internet possible on the Wii. When the final version of Opera is ready to be released, it will be available for 500 Wii points ($5). In addition, the Weather Channel was just recently made operable, though the News Channel won’t be working until January 27, 2007.
The addition of web surfing will be considered a welcome addition by many Wii owners, but potentially at the cost of their privacy. In the 24WiiConnect’s Terms of Service (TOS) agreement, it is stated that some internet information such as originating IP addresses, web activity, and surfing habits will be monitored by "web beacons". These web page objects are invisible to the user, but function as a device for checking to see if a page or e-mail has been viewed. This "anonymous aggregate data" is used by Nintendo and other businesses to track activity for marketing and demographics purposes.
Users who agree to the TOS without reading the full documentation will likely fail to notice this caveat, unknowingly surrending their web surfing privacy in the process. And while the collected information is anonymous, it still may raise concerns related to collective tracking activities by the 24WiiConnect service.
