Giant computer games developer Electronic Arts (EA) faces a class action suit related to its recently-released game “Spore.”

The plaintiff, Melissa Thomas filed suit on her behalf and on behalf of all the other “Spore” purchasers in the Northern District of California Court accusing EA that it did not inform its customers that when installing “Spore” on their PC they are also inadvertently installing SecuROM, a copy protection program which is meant to limit the number of times a software is installed on a personal computer.

SecurROM was programmed to limit the times “Spore” can be installed to three times and then changed the limit to five times after it received complaints from consumers. The suit accused the gaming company that it violated the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law by not notifying its customers about SecuROM.

The lawsuit accuses EA that it "intentionally" masked SecuROM’s installation along with “Spore.” The court papers allege that SecuROM is "secretly installed, surreptitiously operated and prevent[s] the computer from operating under certain circumstances".

Even if the customer uninstalls “Spore” from his PC, SecuROM remains a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio. To get rid of the program one should completely wipe out the hard drive through reformatting or simply replace it.

Numerous customers also complained that SecuROM amounts to malware or spyware due to the fact that it monitors computer use to prevent duplication.

The plaintiff seeks to be paid the $49.99 purchase price plus additional damages.