Agree that the controversy isn't recent. I haven't been a 'gamer' going on nearly 20 years now, and pumkbuster was controversial for a good few years before I left gaming for the grand journey of parenthood.
And I don't think Sony's rootkit was gaming related, but it was somewhat adjacent. And that was about as controversial as it gets.
Not recently, they have a long history of being controversial.
Ideally we'd have consumer protection laws that prevent companies from doing things like using HWIDs to ban accounts.