I do remember reading they wanted their WeGame platform to have a global version. Maybe its linked.
Honestly this event will somehow get turned into steam/valves fault by news sites and whatnot.
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Developing: Epic Games Launcher appears to collect your steam friends & play history (Up2: Valve responds, See Threadmarks)
- Thread starter Madjoki
- Start date
Honestly this event will somehow get turned into steam/valves fault by news sites and whatnot.
That's not how the GDPR (which I assume you meant) works.
It specifically requires you to hold and process only the data absolutely necessary for the completion of whatever you are doing, and get consent for literally any other personal data you gather. You (as in the company processing the data) do by no means get to decide what's "sensitive" and just collect other data as you please. At least that's how I've had it explained to me by people who know more about law than I do.
If that happens I'll officially and entirely give up on the games media.
Same here, I only had the client installed in February 2018 when I played Fortnite for a bit. Since their snooping apparently only started in June or July 2018, I am not directly affected and can't report them. Otherwise I would. EU citizens affected by this should really report them to their national data protection authorities. They are the ones that can actually put pressure on Epic.
That sounds awful. I will see how long it takes them for my request. Legally they have to delete all data within a month and if they don't, I will certainly report their violation of the GDPR to my national data protection authority.
Wish i lived in the EU. I didn't sign up to Epic thinking it was a fucking social network.
I am legitimately pissed off about this.
But you aren't spending your time here victim blaming.
It's funny, you have done nothing but say the people who got spied on are at fault
Epic Games Response
Information
Added Epic Games response to the OP
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoi..._game_store_spyware_tracking_and_you/eijlbge/
How is this a both sides situation? Am I trying to downplay what Epic is doing or something? You just demand a good guy and a bad guy, while I see nothing but villians.
You can't put that cancer on my machine and then ask for forgiveness later, as if you can just "burn the print copies" and that protects privacy. It's digital data. It gets out.
Fuck this bullshit.
Someone should ask how they know the percentage of Fortnite players without Steam. I'd like to see him PR his way out of that
This is correct. You are not allowed to widly collect data. You have to SPECIFY what data you collect and for what you collect that.
That was a typical search-and-replace style mishap by the developer himself though, not the direct fault of anything Epic did.
the way I see it, it shouldn't even attempt to make a local copy of my localconfig.vdf Steam file without first telling me AND getting my consent?
Epic's behaviour really does seem to indicate that they firmly believe they have a mandate to do anything and everything required to succeed in toppling Steam, and the media appear content to encourage them.
PC Gamer, RPS et al, I look forward to your thorough, balanced and hard-hitting coverage of these shenanigans.
PC Gamer, RPS et al, I look forward to your thorough, balanced and hard-hitting coverage of these shenanigans.
Why is the company looking up local data before it asks for perimisson?
I am not a software engineer, but I must wonder: if the intention is to scan what games are currently running (so as not to update them), what is the purpose of colllecting updated (I presume it gets updated?) play time for every single game?
That seems an awful lot like observing and collecting consumer behavior for marketing purposes- data that is not necessary for the stated goal of the process
I never said that. Can you please quote me where I said that? Only thing I said was that if this is important data you don't want shared you guys should also be critical of Valve right now along with Epic.
The statement does not make it better. I have not consented to access MY local Steam account data. They collected this data beforehand WITHOUT specifying it.
Fuck that rotten company. I hope GDPR violations bring them down. I'd love to see them fined massively by the EU.
They are too wrapped up in their narrative that EGS is a "good thing for devs" and that Steam is a social evil since their curation sucks and they are only reactionary when it comes to awful content that makes it onto the store.
This seems like something that should be easy enough to verify by going over packet information. My kingdom for some wireshark traces.
Fines. Ha.
Anything they get hit with I'm sure they could make back within a fortnite.
None of the urls to the source code work for me, am I the only one that faces that problem?
Why must there be a defence force for everything on this forum?
Can we not just save the spin and call a spade a spade?
They still don't (and probably won't) address the fact that it scraps the info first before asking permission.
But Valve isn't sharing it (to our knowledge). If you set your profile to private, Valve does not allow companies to use their API to access your profile data.
Local files on a computer are exactly that, local. They are meant to be used by the program that created it. Other programs are not meant to scrape your harddrive looking for them without you either telling it to, or it asking your permission to do so. Because otherwise, it's literally spyware.
That Epic reply, holy shit that's some straight up hand waving denial. Epic is owned by Sweeney, what even is that line there for. I'm not opted in to Steam linking my profile for Epic and you are still scrapping my computer, and worse yet you are doing it without my consent or knowledge. Only friends, fucking bullshit the receipts say otherwise.
Please, for the love of God go to town on this company journalists. I know you won't, especially Jim "Eh Competition Right?" Sterling, but someone needs to call their bullshit.
Please, for the love of God go to town on this company journalists. I know you won't, especially Jim "Eh Competition Right?" Sterling, but someone needs to call their bullshit.
Why are you doing this if I'm not using the unreal editor? Most people using the epic game store won't be using it.
Why are you doing this without my explicit permission? Surely you could make a copy of my Steam friendslist at the moment I choose to pair it with the egs. There's no need to do it before that.
This shit is suspicious as hell. I don't trust them for a minute with this.
Yeah, and why are they scraping it, instead of using official mechanisms like the steam API?
I completely agree. If this is important data to people it also shouldn't be so easily accessed either.
Ask and you shall receive.
That's textbook victim blaming. I doubt you would say that to a rape victim.
Edit: in before "you're equating that to rape!" irate response: no, I'm saying victim blaming works the same.
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That's bullshit. So they collect information BEFORE I want to import my friends? And just not only that. They collect every game I've played and when that game was played. The fuck is this response??
If anything, this is getting even worse.
I'm going to imagine that since they're a competitor Steam would be like uh fam, no
Of course. Epic's response is BS. They have repeatedly proven that they can't be trusted. Still not gonna stop people from running interference for them in every thread.
That's like saying your wallet shouldn't be easily accessible too, so if you invite someone in to paint your house and they steal your wallet that's on you, hide it better next time.
Crappy analogy aside, we should be able to trust the people who we pay to provide a service for us.
Steam do grant GOG api access for GOG connect. Dunno how that was negotiated though.