Is it acceptable for zenimax to scour through your messages and take account actions at random?

Oznog666

Yes

Yes

They have to control what's going on inside their game. Otherwise this would be very easy turn to another "dark web" messaging system......

Wake up guys, not everyone here is a nice human being just wanting to play a game. Some are criminals, some might be terrrorists, abusing a chat and message system in a game........

kringled_1

Oznog666 wrote: »

Yes

They have to control what's going on inside their game. Otherwise this would be very easy turn to another "dark web" messaging system......

Wake up guys, not everyone here is a nice human being just wanting to play a game. Some are criminals, some might be terrrorists, abusing a chat and message system in a game........

What a weird straw man argument.
The vast majority of people in this thread are in agreement that ZoS has the legal right to monitor these conversations, and I don't think people here would be complaining about legal actions against criminal conspiracies planned in ESO chat, however unlikely that might sound.
What people are complaining about is in-game disciplinary actions for the use of a handful of impolite words in not fully public settings (housing, group chat, instance chat) and in contexts where no-one is taking offense (being rude about a trial boss, etc).

Desiato

No

I'm principled on this topic, but not an idealist. I understand that ZOS has legal requirements they must comply to in various ways, which I'm fine with.

However, there's no legal requirements to police how polite people are with each other in private interactions. That's really what this thread is about.

I can't believe anyone thinks ZOS should be policing private conversations for decorum without first being invited to by one of the parties. It's outrageous.

Consider how disruptive this can be. In one recent case, a hard working streamer was banned for 3 days during a period of eso twitch drops. They were banned because of something they said to a friend who wasn't offended.

Imagine how stressful it was for that player. Not only were they not able to make use of a product they had paid for, they were also unable to hang out with their friends in-game as they had planned. They seem to be working hard to become a successful streamer, so imagine how stressful it was to be unable to play during a drop event when the eso twitch channel sees increased activity.

All of this misery and stress inflicted upon a paying customer... FOR WHAT!?? It makes no sense. Had ZOS just minded their own business, everyone -- including ZOS -- would be better off.

I have no problem if a bot watches my chats to see if I am talking about weapons of mass destruction and reports that to a human if it thinks I am. but I have a big problem with some random human customer support rep reading my private conversations with my friends for no good reason.

Unfadingsilence

Yes

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Their system. Their responsibility. Their privilege.

100%

Veryamedliel

Desiato wrote: »

However, there's no legal requirements to police how polite people are with each other in private interactions. That's really what this thread is about.

I can't believe anyone thinks ZOS should be policing private conversations for decorum without first being invited to by one of the parties. It's outrageous.

There's no such thing as a private conversation in this or any game. There is a conversation. Or rather, there's a user making a statement by typing in-game. Nothing more or less. The only difference is the amount of people it reaches, which does not affect any legal argument, either pro or con.

Desiato wrote: »

I have no problem if a bot watches my chats to see if I am talking about weapons of mass destruction and reports that to a human if it thinks I am. but I have a big problem with some random human customer support rep reading my private conversations with my friends for no good reason.

Which is exactly how it works. AI flags, a trained rep examines the flag and decides on the action to be taken. So you have nothing to fear. No random support rep will (and shouldn't even be able to if they set up their systems correctly) say 'let's read all of Desiato's conversations today. I have some time to kill and perhaps I'll find something to get him banned or suspended'. That's not how it works =]

Sleepsin

I'm amazed at how comfortable people have become with this kind of monitoring.

Vaqual

No

Only if they actually understand what they are doing. No need to harass paying customers for perfectly consensual interactions. No harm, no foul.

Nord_Raseri

No

They should change "Whisper" to "Three-way chat with ZOS bot".

Varana

No

Veryamedliel wrote: »

... a trained rep examines the flag and decides on the action to be taken...

How do you define "trained", and how do you know that that's what they're doing?

Dojohoda

No

Veryamedliel wrote: »

Dojohoda wrote: »

There is a system in place in which a customer may report another customer. This system should be sufficient because it includes a first hand witness of the purported harm. The action was initiated by the customer present at the time.

AI looking for words and then sending information to someone who will look into it is not the same. The action was not initiated by a customer or a human being.

According the those who have been banned, this system has handed out punishment when there is no injured party. Typing the words appear to be the crime, words, which the company will not disclose, could shut down a customer's game play for a few days or longer.

That's fine an well as far as that goes. But what if both parties don't take offense? Like when discussing a future hit or robbery or some such? Yes, sadly, this actually happens in games. It's not just roleplaying for fun all the time. In this case ZoS itself is the damaged party. What then?

Also, what people claim and what actually happened are not necessarily the same thing. A very common thing on forums. To quote the not-so-famous- commander of the LEP Recon Squad Julius Root: ' I have no time for theory. Bring me solid evidence or get out of my office until you have some'. If you do have some, you have my support any way I can. Not before.

Indeed! However, I am going by Kevin's follow-up in the first topic which is here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8190298/#Comment_8190298
In the comment, he did not dispute that customers had been banned.

Kevin mentioned serious crimes in his comment as you did in yours. On that note, if you enjoy reading USA official documents, you might like the information on this page. This was released to the public February 2024.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106262 The PDF files near the bottom of the page have the report. It is titled "FBI and DHS Need Strategies and Goals for Sharing Threat Information with Social Media and Gaming Companies" and it has a linked index.

PrincessOfThieves

No

Veryamedliel wrote: »

Dojohoda wrote: »

There is a system in place in which a customer may report another customer. This system should be sufficient because it includes a first hand witness of the purported harm. The action was initiated by the customer present at the time.

AI looking for words and then sending information to someone who will look into it is not the same. The action was not initiated by a customer or a human being.

According the those who have been banned, this system has handed out punishment when there is no injured party. Typing the words appear to be the crime, words, which the company will not disclose, could shut down a customer's game play for a few days or longer.

That's fine an well as far as that goes. But what if both parties don't take offense? Like when discussing a future hit or robbery or some such? Yes, sadly, this actually happens in games. It's not just roleplaying for fun all the time. In this case ZoS itself is the damaged party. What then?

Also, what people claim and what actually happened are not necessarily the same thing. A very common thing on forums. To quote the not-so-famous- commander of the LEP Recon Squad Julius Root: ' I have no time for theory. Bring me solid evidence or get out of my office until you have some'. If you do have some, you have my support any way I can. Not before.

Well, first of all, if ZOS finds out that some real criminals were using their services, they should inform the police instead of banning lol. These situations are above their paygrade.
Secondly, making the whole game super laggy and banning people for using bad words in chat, especially in private conversations and rp does not do anything to prevent real life crimes from happening. The few cases we know of were someone cussing in zone chat because they were annoyed by a ball group, someone making a joke about Green Pact and someone rping (probably as an evil character). These things have nothing to do with people planning heists irl or doing other illegal activities. I wonder if the AI can even make a difference between people talking about real life stuff vs roleplaying as a thief and doing TG/DB quests.
Yes, companies nowadays are very invasive and they do actually collect data for their own purposes. That doesn't mean that we should just accept it and happily accept even worse invasions of privacy. Would you be okay with installing cameras all around your home? Just to make sure you are not doing anything illegal, you know.

SuspensionDispersingAutomaton

No

Veryamedliel wrote: »

AI flags, a trained rep examines the flag and decides on the action to be taken.

Just lol.

Veryamedliel wrote: »

No random support rep will (and shouldn't even be able to if they set up their systems correctly) say 'let's read all of Desiato's conversations today. I have some time to kill and perhaps I'll find something to get him banned or suspended'. That's not how it works =]

Sweet summer child...
Few years ago, when warns and suspensions for private chat channels weren't as common as of since September 13th of 2024, a friend of mine received a warning for a ragetell in Cyrodiil he sent to another player.
When he kept trying to convince the customer support person that it wasn't as bad as it looked, the support semi-agreed, but still warned against using foul language in the future, even in private, because if reported by a player (it was), the action will be taken.
All well and good, but shortly after, the friend received another warning for spamming his empty guild bank chat (which happened several days prior to the ragetell, and was done in order to test connectivity issues), something me and several other friends been doing for years (before and after said accident) with absolutely no issues or warnings whatsoever.
This time, the support doubled-down on the "spamming chats is against the rules, even if no one sees and reports them, for whatever reason, the warning stays, blah blah".

So no, they will go read your chats in attempt to punish you for something else, and then ignore all your future explanations on the subject, keeping the penalty on your account in order to punish you harsher the next time something happens.

Veryamedliel

Varana wrote: »

Veryamedliel wrote: »

... a trained rep examines the flag and decides on the action to be taken...

How do you define "trained", and how do you know that that's what they're doing?

Good question. The second one is probably the one that people want to see answered most. But let's start with the first.

First of all, anyone who has to work with GDPR related data need to have training on how to deal with personal data. What they can and cannot do with it, how they should do it and a couple of dozen other rules they have to follow while handling that data. Where I live it's a 3 week full-time course just to learn how to handle and secure such data.
Second, while not being a specific training, the rep handling the flag should be fluent in the language used. If not, no correct judgement can be made after all. And in case of a game, I imagine that they should have at least a basic understanding of the game to avoid any confusion. There are quite a few graveyard in the game for instance. It doesn't have to be a real-life one per se. So context and understanding matters.

How do I know that's what they're doing? Frankly, I do not. I don't work for them and if i did I'd probably lose my job if I gabbed about it on these forums.
Still, they have to follow the law, and that includes listing the data manager by name. There has to be someone responsible for this type of work in any company that deals with personal data and that person needs to be addressable, if that's a word. You can't just say 'yes we have a GDPR/DPA manager' and be done with it. The authorities needs to know who that person is and how to reach him/her. And before you ask, no, they do not have to share that person's name with us customers/users/players/whatever. Sorry. They just need to offer us a place to appeal, nothing more.

However, they do not have to list any staff members working under this Data Manager. They just have to show they have enough manpower to do the job as the law demands. So in theory I guess they could try cutting corners there. Law enforcement and agencies that do these type of inspections pick companies at random to check so it's not entirely impossible to get away with it for a while. Still, it would be rather silly and stupid to cut corners over a few grand of training fees. Punishments can lead up to a % of their yearly profit, depending on what they did wrong, so a few grand in training fees is nothing for a company like this and well worth it.

And, not unimportant, us players can file complaints if we have evidence that ZoS is conducting malpractice with regards to how they use/store/monitor our data. It's up to the agencies to decide if it's enough to investigate though. Just like you can't force a DA to prosecute someone you suspect of a crime. They decide that for themselves based on any evidence you provide and what other evidence they gather themselves after you file the complaint. All you need to do is find their EU HQ (which i think is in Amsterdam, but I'm not 100% sure) and appeal to the local DPA/GDPR authorities there.

So, as with anything, all we can do is trust that they'll follow the law and trust the agencies doing the checks to do their jobs. It's not like I can just walk into their Amsterdam HQ (if that's where they still are) and demand to see how they do their jobs. So I personally will only know they effed up once they do and it hits the news. Would be a fun and educational experience to take a peek inside tho.

And yes, I can see how this can create a trust issue between players and ZoS. But there's really nothing either side can do about it. They have no choice but to follow the law and they can't publicly share names of the players they banned because of privacy issues. They aren't even allowed to release bare account names (without any other personal information) of the ones that got banned. The best they can do is present the number of people banned and they don't even have to that much. It would create a bit of transparency but it won't be much due to other legal reasons. That's up to Zos though, not me.

Vulkunne

Yes

I can't speak for ZOS, I can't speak for any of you. However, just because you disagree does not make you free.

If you are chatting or gaming or whatever it is, you are doing that on someone else's server then that data is no longer private. Should they do this, should they do that, could they forgive this, can they overlook that oh pretty please is really too late. That said, people do sometimes make mistakes, this I know because I've made enough of my own mistakes.

But when you're in someone else's house instead of thinking like, what am I entitled to do and say, think like I'm in someone else's house so they have rules, and even if I'm not breaking a rule, if I know that what I'm say is embarrassing, like thru a Private chat, which is part of the reason why we have private chats right? If you know its not on the level then don't say it.

Make life easier for yourself and everyone else and search for a truly private means of chatting or maybe use the cell phone, I dunno do something like that. But expecting the homeowner to play by your rules when you're in their house is not very nice and it won't end nice either.

Veryamedliel

SuspensionDispersingAutomaton wrote: »

Veryamedliel wrote: »

AI flags, a trained rep examines the flag and decides on the action to be taken.

Just lol.

Veryamedliel wrote: »

No random support rep will (and shouldn't even be able to if they set up their systems correctly) say 'let's read all of Desiato's conversations today. I have some time to kill and perhaps I'll find something to get him banned or suspended'. That's not how it works =]

Sweet summer child...
Few years ago, when warns and suspensions for private chat channels weren't as common as of since September 13th of 2024, a friend of mine received a warning for a ragetell in Cyrodiil he sent to another player.
When he kept trying to convince the customer support person that it wasn't as bad as it looked, the support semi-agreed, but still warned against using foul language in the future, even in private, because if reported by a player (it was), the action will be taken.
All well and good, but shortly after, the friend received another warning for spamming his empty guild bank chat (which happened several days prior to the ragetell, and was done in order to test connectivity issues), something me and several other friends been doing for years (before and after said accident) with absolutely no issues or warnings whatsoever.
This time, the support doubled-down on the "spamming chats is against the rules, even if no one sees and reports them, for whatever reason, the warning stays, blah blah".

So no, they will go read your chats in attempt to punish you for something else, and then ignore all your future explanations on the subject, keeping the penalty on your account in order to punish you harsher the next time something happens.

Spring child actually But I see what you're trying to say.
And no. I'm not naïve enough to claim that nothing will go wrong ever. Mistakes will be made, people will eff up. People will go on a dedicated hate spree against you for whatever reasons. ok, I'm just making that up, but it could happen. In theory. In practice, if you can prove such a thing, the company can be held accountable. At least in the EU they can. Not sure how things like that work in other countries/regions.

I lack enough information on your specific case to dare comment on it. As I said earlier, there's too much gab on these forums and not nearly enough solid evidence and I'm not risking my neck based on gab. No offense intended. I'm not calling you a liar, It's just that I can't do anything with this story. But if that player feels his rights were violated and/or that a ZoS employee effed up and he can back it up with solid facts, he's free to fight it. In fact, I'd encourage him to if he's able.

Hapexamendios

Yes

I never send anything personal or disparaging so I don't really care.

SteveCampsOut

Yes

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

People know that their communications on the internet are not secure. You are only fooling yourself if you have any expectations of privacy on the internet. By its very nature it is the transmission and reception of data, and by its transmission methods it can and most likely will be intercepted.

This is what I find strange.

Ever since I first got online, 20+ years ago, I realized that what I put out there is both pretty permanent AND not private.

Because I am using someone else's site to put those thoughts, whatever thoughts, out there, and every TOS I have seen has some clause about them storing those thoughts, and some even have clauses that say they can use the things you put on their website for advertising purposes.

I was *always* told to be careful of what I put online for this very reason.

As for an analogy, ESO is like going to ZOS's house for DnD and wanting to have a private conversation in a different room, when you have already been told all conversations are monitored in the house. It is ZOS's house, they can make their rules, as long as they comply with the laws of the countries they are available in, AND they can enforce those rules and change them when they want.

To me, this has always been the reality of using the internet and signing up for sites.

Yeah, I have been "Online" since, GASP, 1984 when I bought my first Tandy 1000(A) PC and started my own BBS system on it at home called The Tardis BBS in Houston Texas. I was on Delphi, Compuserv and AOL when they showed up and in 1987 when Delphi gained access to the text based Internet before HTML came along and turned the Internet into a party of words and pictures. Been there, seen it all. There is no privacy here, and anyone who whines about not having it needs to go back to the real world and hide their illicit behaviors in the real shadows..

FelisCatus

No

No, it's not acceptable, and it is disgusting for anyone to defend it.

Dragonnord

Yes

Of course it's acceptable and they have the right to do it. It's their game. You own nothing here.

You are completely wrong by just opening this thread.

So of course they can check "your" chat, because it's their chat, not yours.

Every pixel belongs to them and we all accepted that when we agreed to the ToS.
 

Elsonso

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Yeah, I have been "Online" since, GASP, 1984 when I bought my first Tandy 1000(A) PC and started my own BBS system on it at home called The Tardis BBS in Houston Texas.

BBS Sysop. Pretty rare club, there. I may also be a member, but I admit to nothing!

Dragonnord wrote: »

Every pixel belongs to them and we all accepted that when we agreed to the ToS. 

The curse of the "live service" and "digital games". Players own nothing and are entirely at the whim whatever company owns the rights to the game. If Steam ever goes belly up, the collective screams of the players will probably herald the Apocalypse.

SteveCampsOut

Yes

Elsonso wrote: »

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

Yeah, I have been "Online" since, GASP, 1984 when I bought my first Tandy 1000(A) PC and started my own BBS system on it at home called The Tardis BBS in Houston Texas.

BBS Sysop. Pretty rare club, there. I may also be a member, but I admit to nothing!

Dragonnord wrote: »

Every pixel belongs to them and we all accepted that when we agreed to the ToS. 

The curse of the "live service" and "digital games". Players own nothing and are entirely at the whim whatever company owns the rights to the game. If Steam ever goes belly up, the collective screams of the players will probably herald the Apocalypse.

Yep. I ran two versions of different BBS software back then.. The NOCHANGE BBS software was the most popular because it had games people could play. I honestly, 40+ years later can't recall the other software I used.

CrazyKitty

No

'They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. '

-Benjamin Franklin

amig186

No

karthrag_inak wrote: »

amig186 wrote: »

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Their system. Their responsibility. Their privilege.

I sure hope you never share anything personal in your 'private' chats with online friends, then.

Khajiit controls himself and recognizes that there is no expectation of privacy in an environment that is managed by someone else. This is equivalent to being in public, and this one hasn't been in the habit of throwing down emotional tantrums, or even just expressing personal drama in public since he was perhaps 5 years old.

EDIT : this sounded more acerbic than was intended, so apologies. The point isn't that hard, though. Don't share private things in a public forum unless you want those private things made public. -shrug-.

Not talking about emotional outbursts. I've had people confide in me about certain things that were therapeutic to talk about but certainly not meant for the public eye. What made it therapeutic was the illusion of privacy and the thought of it being up on display is a bit sickening. I know now that I should have just invited them to talk elsewhere, but it just goes to show that a lot of people, maybe most, don't know how public this private chat is.

SteveCampsOut

Yes

CrazyKitty wrote: »

'They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. '

-Benjamin Franklin

You are free to go play in someone else's sandbox. There's your liberty. Seriously! Stop acting like you have the right to do whatever you want in someone else's house and trying to make yourself sound noble by quoting the founding fathers. Even they had laws that people had to abide by.

JemadarofCaerSalis

Yes

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

SteveCampsOut wrote: »

People know that their communications on the internet are not secure. You are only fooling yourself if you have any expectations of privacy on the internet. By its very nature it is the transmission and reception of data, and by its transmission methods it can and most likely will be intercepted.

This is what I find strange.

Ever since I first got online, 20+ years ago, I realized that what I put out there is both pretty permanent AND not private.

Because I am using someone else's site to put those thoughts, whatever thoughts, out there, and every TOS I have seen has some clause about them storing those thoughts, and some even have clauses that say they can use the things you put on their website for advertising purposes.

I was *always* told to be careful of what I put online for this very reason.

As for an analogy, ESO is like going to ZOS's house for DnD and wanting to have a private conversation in a different room, when you have already been told all conversations are monitored in the house. It is ZOS's house, they can make their rules, as long as they comply with the laws of the countries they are available in, AND they can enforce those rules and change them when they want.

To me, this has always been the reality of using the internet and signing up for sites.

Yeah, I have been "Online" since, GASP, 1984 when I bought my first Tandy 1000(A) PC and started my own BBS system on it at home called The Tardis BBS in Houston Texas. I was on Delphi, Compuserv and AOL when they showed up and in 1987 when Delphi gained access to the text based Internet before HTML came along and turned the Internet into a party of words and pictures. Been there, seen it all. There is no privacy here, and anyone who whines about not having it needs to go back to the real world and hide their illicit behaviors in the real shadows..

I haven't been online that long, I live pretty rurally and so reliable internet service was pretty sparse. When I did get online had to make do with dialup for a long time.

Bottom line is, to me at least, is that these are ZOS's servers, they are paying the bills for them. Which means they DO have the 'right' to dictate what is posted to them. Just as if I owned servers and allowed people to access them, I would have the right to determine what is posted to those servers.

This has nothing to do with 'freedom' because ZOS isn't the government. They are a business.

darvaria

No

Even though I voted NO and wish it was not allowed, it is within ZOS's legal right to do so. This subject has been focused quite a few cases on company owned computers and company owned message services. ZOS OWNS the platform.

Now, if they intercepted your discord, personal email messages, it would be a different matter. I do recall a guild discord being used for inappropriate messages and ZOS could take no action on it.

I'm not sure about streaming content. Probably if it takes places within a ZOS game, they would own that too. For sure, if you are using ESO as a back drop, it would follow under ZOS ownership.

But as stated above, with the advanced AI, better take care as to what is said. I've known of recent bans on comments made at Cyrodiil, reported by a player's own faction. WHY is there so much concern and action taken on this lately?

ZOS's platform, ZOS can basically do anything.

Best NOT to say anything in game messages. Use discord or some other message system.

(My husband had a case with his company where employees said inappropriate things on company email and they were dismissed. Two threatened a law suit, but could not find an attorney to rep them.)

pklemming

No

As I said before, no. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy with private messaging. it does not matter if they are a company. It is like saying, Zos is a company and things like DCMA is inconsequential.

Incidentally, do you know you can request all the information stored by ZoS, on you, under a Subject Access Request, and that needs to be supplied to you no later than one calendar month from request? They are a company, it does not exclude them from basic laws. Data protection and expectation of privacy are not subject to their whim and beyond their purview when deciding if they are, or are not, implemented.

RaikaNA

Yes

FelisCatus wrote: »

No, it's not acceptable, and it is disgusting for anyone to defend it.

I'm not trying to defend it, but the harsh reality is that we do not "own" the Elder Scrolls online game. We have a license to play the game, but we do not outright own the game, and the terms of service clearly state that. We agreed to these terms when we first registered for our account. It was the only way that we could start to play the game.

Zenimax can do anything that they want in their games. It's their playground and they make the rules

Sleepsin

Hapexamendios wrote: »

I never send anything personal or disparaging so I don't really care.

Are you sure about that? View points change and what is not considered personal or disparaging today might get you banned in the future. For example, not long ago saying "only a woman can get pregnant", was not controversial. In some circles today it is considered hate speech.

katanagirl1

I don’t like it, but what can we do? If we don’t accept the ToS we can’t play.