Suppose that every time you go to a convenience store to purchase something, the store owner would send a full list of purchases you made to all your family and friends. Without telling you, informing you, or asking for your permission to do so. And you had in fact no way of knowing this is happening unless they tell you about it, or you start noticing that you are receiving such information about your family members or friends, and start wondering if they are getting that from you as well.
Or suppose that every time you rent a movie online, or start watching the movie, the rental site would automatically send a notification about this to all your family members and friends. Again, without telling you or asking your permission, or showing that this is happening.
Suppose you went to a naughty website to watch some naughty videos... and the website surreptitiously, without telling you or asking for your permission, sent all your Facebook and Twitter friends a notification that you have done this. And did so in a way that you had no way of even seeing it's happening.
I think anybody would agree that this wouldn't be ok. It would not be ok no matter what kind of content you purchase and watch, even if it's completely fine and innocent. It's a question of privacy and personal preference. If should be your choice whether your family and friends should know about your purchases. Some random third-party company shouldn't be in a position of making this choice for you, without asking you for permission and without notifying you it's doing this.
Yet, for some reason, this is happening all the time with video game digital distribution platforms that support friends lists. Very typically and commonly, you purchase a game, or start playing a game... and people in your friends list will see this is happening. Also quite commonly you will not be explicitly notified that this is happening, nor were you asked explicit permission for the platform to do this. Even when it's a choice, the knob will by default be set to "yes", and you will not know this is the case unless you start digging into your profile settings.
Moreover, this is almost invariably an all-or-nothing setting: Most typically you will not be able to choose which games are ok to show you playing and which are not. (There may well be situations where you may actually want people in your friends list to see when you start playing a game, eg. a multiplayer game. But that doesn't necessarily mean you want them to see everything.)
All the major video game digital distribution stores and platforms supporting a friends list are guilty of this, but Steam is by far the worst offender.
For over 10 years Steam has been broadcasting your games list, and when you start playing a game, to everybody in your friends list, without telling you, asking your permission, or in any way, shape or form informing you that this is happening. For over 10 years this was not specified or told anywhere in Steam. Not anywhere in its user interface, not anywhere at Valve's or Steam's websites, not in the Steam Subscriber Agreement (which you have to agree to when you create a Steam account), not even in its Privacy Policy document.
The only way for you to know that people in your friends list are seeing your entire library of games, and getting a notification every time you start playing a game, is for either your friends telling you, or you noticing that you can see their library of games and get a notification when they start playing a game, and suspect that this is happening in the other direction as well. You could not find this information literally anywhere in Steam or any Valve website.
What's worse, for over 10 years the Privacy Policy document in Steam was highly misleading in this regard, as it used language that implied that no information from you would be sent to any third-party in a manner that could be connected to you or your account (in other words, any information and statistics collected from you would only be sent in an aggregated form that cannot be connected to individual users or their accounts.)
And do you know what's even worse than that? The fact that even if you set your public profile complete to private, people in your friends list could still see if you owned a particular game, or started playing it. So not only was the Privacy Policy document misleading, even your profile settings were highly misleading in this regard as well. (Setting your public profile to private stops anybody from seeing your profile page, but it would not stop people in your friends list from getting notifications about you starting a game, or seeing that you own a particular game, at least if they own it as well.)
Relatively recently Valve heavily updated their Privacy Policy document, revising it almost completely, as well as adding a few more privacy options to your Steam profile (possibly because of privacy law changes in the EU, perhaps). However, while it's somewhat better and slightly more informative than before (eg. it has mostly removed the misleading language mentioned before), it still does not say what exactly people in your friends list can see from you. You have still no option to make sure that nobody, not even people in your friends list, can see anything from you. There's certainly no option to do this on a game-by-game basis.
But do you know what I find most baffling about this whole thing?
The fact that the vast majority of people, eg. Steam users, not only do not seem to care about this potential breach of privacy done without asking them for consent, but in fact many of them will actually defend Valve (and other similar companies, like Sony) for doing this.
I have over the years had many conversations in many online forums about this, and especially if the forum is frequented primarily by avid PC gamers, almost invariably they will go to almost ridiculous lengths to defend Valve on this. To this day it's a complete mystery to me why.
Pretty much invariably when I have asked these people if they would be ok with some grocery store, or online video rental, sending all of their Facebook friends a full list of purchases every time they shop there, without asking for their permission to do so or notifying them (I clearly point out that the Steam Subscriber Agreement has no section whatsoever about this), I have got no answer. Yet, seemingly it's ok when Valve does it. When I have asked why, I have got no answer. It just seemingly is, because reasons.
What baffles me even more is that in pretty much all cases I have got more people defending Valve than those agreeing that yeah, maybe it would be good if there were a bit more privacy options.
I just have to wonder how this kind of mentality has formed. Is it something exclusive to gamers in particular?
Do you have an extensive friends list on Steam, the PlayStation Network, or other such digital distribution platforms? Are you fully aware of what they can see from you? Are you ok with it? Did the platform in question inform you and ask you permission to send these people this information?
Or suppose that every time you rent a movie online, or start watching the movie, the rental site would automatically send a notification about this to all your family members and friends. Again, without telling you or asking your permission, or showing that this is happening.
Suppose you went to a naughty website to watch some naughty videos... and the website surreptitiously, without telling you or asking for your permission, sent all your Facebook and Twitter friends a notification that you have done this. And did so in a way that you had no way of even seeing it's happening.
I think anybody would agree that this wouldn't be ok. It would not be ok no matter what kind of content you purchase and watch, even if it's completely fine and innocent. It's a question of privacy and personal preference. If should be your choice whether your family and friends should know about your purchases. Some random third-party company shouldn't be in a position of making this choice for you, without asking you for permission and without notifying you it's doing this.
Yet, for some reason, this is happening all the time with video game digital distribution platforms that support friends lists. Very typically and commonly, you purchase a game, or start playing a game... and people in your friends list will see this is happening. Also quite commonly you will not be explicitly notified that this is happening, nor were you asked explicit permission for the platform to do this. Even when it's a choice, the knob will by default be set to "yes", and you will not know this is the case unless you start digging into your profile settings.
Moreover, this is almost invariably an all-or-nothing setting: Most typically you will not be able to choose which games are ok to show you playing and which are not. (There may well be situations where you may actually want people in your friends list to see when you start playing a game, eg. a multiplayer game. But that doesn't necessarily mean you want them to see everything.)
All the major video game digital distribution stores and platforms supporting a friends list are guilty of this, but Steam is by far the worst offender.
For over 10 years Steam has been broadcasting your games list, and when you start playing a game, to everybody in your friends list, without telling you, asking your permission, or in any way, shape or form informing you that this is happening. For over 10 years this was not specified or told anywhere in Steam. Not anywhere in its user interface, not anywhere at Valve's or Steam's websites, not in the Steam Subscriber Agreement (which you have to agree to when you create a Steam account), not even in its Privacy Policy document.
The only way for you to know that people in your friends list are seeing your entire library of games, and getting a notification every time you start playing a game, is for either your friends telling you, or you noticing that you can see their library of games and get a notification when they start playing a game, and suspect that this is happening in the other direction as well. You could not find this information literally anywhere in Steam or any Valve website.
What's worse, for over 10 years the Privacy Policy document in Steam was highly misleading in this regard, as it used language that implied that no information from you would be sent to any third-party in a manner that could be connected to you or your account (in other words, any information and statistics collected from you would only be sent in an aggregated form that cannot be connected to individual users or their accounts.)
And do you know what's even worse than that? The fact that even if you set your public profile complete to private, people in your friends list could still see if you owned a particular game, or started playing it. So not only was the Privacy Policy document misleading, even your profile settings were highly misleading in this regard as well. (Setting your public profile to private stops anybody from seeing your profile page, but it would not stop people in your friends list from getting notifications about you starting a game, or seeing that you own a particular game, at least if they own it as well.)
Relatively recently Valve heavily updated their Privacy Policy document, revising it almost completely, as well as adding a few more privacy options to your Steam profile (possibly because of privacy law changes in the EU, perhaps). However, while it's somewhat better and slightly more informative than before (eg. it has mostly removed the misleading language mentioned before), it still does not say what exactly people in your friends list can see from you. You have still no option to make sure that nobody, not even people in your friends list, can see anything from you. There's certainly no option to do this on a game-by-game basis.
But do you know what I find most baffling about this whole thing?
The fact that the vast majority of people, eg. Steam users, not only do not seem to care about this potential breach of privacy done without asking them for consent, but in fact many of them will actually defend Valve (and other similar companies, like Sony) for doing this.
I have over the years had many conversations in many online forums about this, and especially if the forum is frequented primarily by avid PC gamers, almost invariably they will go to almost ridiculous lengths to defend Valve on this. To this day it's a complete mystery to me why.
Pretty much invariably when I have asked these people if they would be ok with some grocery store, or online video rental, sending all of their Facebook friends a full list of purchases every time they shop there, without asking for their permission to do so or notifying them (I clearly point out that the Steam Subscriber Agreement has no section whatsoever about this), I have got no answer. Yet, seemingly it's ok when Valve does it. When I have asked why, I have got no answer. It just seemingly is, because reasons.
What baffles me even more is that in pretty much all cases I have got more people defending Valve than those agreeing that yeah, maybe it would be good if there were a bit more privacy options.
I just have to wonder how this kind of mentality has formed. Is it something exclusive to gamers in particular?
Do you have an extensive friends list on Steam, the PlayStation Network, or other such digital distribution platforms? Are you fully aware of what they can see from you? Are you ok with it? Did the platform in question inform you and ask you permission to send these people this information?
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