ZOS integrated spyware RedShell by mistake, deleted from live, still in PTS folder

LumbermillOverlord

The PTS is now offline for maintenance, and is currently unavailable.

GTech_1

Leaving this here for followup confirmation:

June 9th, 2018: Today's PTS patch (version 4.0.5) did remove Redshell.dll from the PTS client.

Syncronaut

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/red-shell-spyware-controversy#comments

Heh, its well known now.

Additionally, the user shared a list of games that had removed Red Shell after the controversy:

Elder Scrolls Online (Pledged to remove it)
Conan Exiles (Pledged to remove it)
Ylands (Pledged to remove it)
Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?! (Pledged to remove it)
All Total War games, (Pledged to remove it)
Warhammer: Vermintide II, (Pledged to remove it)
Warhammer: Vermintide I, (might get removed also?)
My Time At Portia, (Pledged to remove it)
Dead by Daylight, (Pledged to remove it)
Battlerite, (Pledged to remove it)
AER Memories of Old, (Pledged to remove it)
Magic the Gathering Arena (closed beta & not on Steam), (Pledged to remove it for now)
Secret World Legends (Pledged to remove remains of it)
Hunt: Showdown (Pledged to remove it)
Escapists 2 (Pledged to remove it)
Omensight (Pledged to remove it)

They also published a list of games that continued to use the application:

Civilization VI,
Kerbal Space Program,
Guardians of Ember,
The Onion Knights,
Realm Grinder,
Heroine Anthem Zero,
Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade,
Krosmaga
Eternal Card Game
Sniper Ghost Warrior 3
Astro Boy: Edge of Time
Ballistic Overkill
Cabals: Card Blitz
CityBattle | Virtual Earth
Desolate
Doodle God
Doodle God Blitz
Dungeon Rushers
Labyrinth
My Free Farm 2
NosTale
RockShot
Shadowverse
SOS & SOS Classic
SoulWorker
Stonies
Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation
War Robots
Survived By
Injustice 2
The Wild Eight

LumbermillOverlord

thanks for the list, nice to know

President_PUG

MOTHERBOARD ONLINE MAGAZINE reports:
Game Developers Dump 'Redshell' Tracking Program After Privacy Backlash
Developers of games like Total War and Civilization are apologizing and removing the software from their games.
Jun 18 2018, 8:25am

Personally it wasn't as big a deal as people made out.There are so many marketing ways to track consumers you probably don't even realize Your local grocery store keeps tabs on you.

Here is selection from MORRISON FOODS : "We know that an anonymised card number paid for a particular basket of groceries one week and how much was spent with the same card number the following week," says a Morrisons spokesperson. "It means we know when customers are lapsing because we won't see their card for a week. We use it to measure the effectiveness of promotions and events."

A RBS Visa debit card being handed to a shop assistant
Supermarkets can use your card details to learn more about you.
When asked whether its customers give permission for their card numbers to be tracked in this way, the supermarket says customers "would only need to opt in" if Morrisons intended to send them any form of communication.

Maybe you didn't realize Your local T.V. provider can sell your browsing history.

Consider this:DirecTV combines data it collects from viewing habits from its customers’ digital video recorders with information from third-party market researchers in categories such as income, gender, age and buying habits. This is how it figures out how to send the right ad to the person on the other end of the pitch.
“We can target based on demographics, household income, geo-targeting, home owners versus rental - a wide variety,” said Paul Guyardo, chief revenue and marketing officer for DirecTV.

Did you know the following information about you is accessible by your service provider at any time.
All unencrypted IP packets: the addresses in the header, and the data payload.
All unencrypted E-mails that are ever stored at their E-mail server.
All unencrypted files you store in their web server (or "Cloud Storage" service). All encrypted files to which they have the encryption key.
All IP Addresses you exchange traffic with, without exception (these cannot be encrypted because they are used to route the traffic and thus are subject to Traffic Analysis). This can be slightly mitigated with use of Virtual Private Networks, but that still will not mask how much data you’re moving, or when you’re moving it.
All E-mail addresses for correspondence you send/receive through their SMTP (E-mail) servers (as with IP addresses, these are used to route E-mail messages and must be unencrypted). Also subject to Traffic Analysis.
All Domain Name System queries you make through their DNS name servers.

If you stop and think about it The Marketing companies were trying to be helpful to you. "Hey We notice you like to call your Pizza in around 7 p.m. Friday evenings...We special offer yada yada yada just for you..."

You know what THE BIGGEST COST for a game is, hell any business...ADVERTISING.
If I told you "HALF the budget for an online internet game goes just in Advertising." 9 figures in top AAA games. Would you consider they could save a HUGE amount money if they knew which adds actually work? They wouldn't have to spend so much in areas that offer no return. They could narrow down a lot of wasted money, if they just knew a way to find out what you might want in the future.
Hence a tool that's been around longer most you been on Earth called "MIDDLEMAN"
That's just another person with their hand out trying just make an honest living keeping a notebook about what other people are up to.

REDSHELL could've saved gamers and and game makers millions, the only mistake was not telling those on the targeted end that we would like to peruse your purchasing history of OUR PRODUCTS to better allocate The funds we use to know what to continue to make and what not to make.It all stayed in house, What gaming company wants to give up what you might like to buy?

Lets look at the World as a Whole and in closing You might find this amusing and less threatening to Your Information comfort zone.

You read in The Headlines one day a Foreign country has accessed your banks information and may have targeted your account. You know stealing from a bank that way is a one time gig...If you just want to know what everyone over there is buying, You could build a factory way ahead everyone else and start supplying the goods before other nations realize the potential.Think of the savings, no guessing where to invest when starting up that company, Heck its a blank check.
That how valuable your spending habits are. Your actually money is safe that's not their agenda. They just want to know more then the other guy, and offer You The Thing You exactly wanted for along time...before you even realize you need it.

Bottom line? Someday not too far in the Future... a Game that's a must have and if you don't have it your loser, The Game decides You can join, but here is what We need you to agree to...and from there depending on how bad you wanna play that game, you will be willing to put on clown shoes, ride a unicycle, and call yourself MARY! Just so you can have that game.
They all ready got your attention focused to their world the size of hand held phone. VR and real time heart rate monitoring, instant brain wave mapping, and soon You won't even need a cord to plug in any more, all you need is a little chip behind your ear, and you take your gaming anywhere.

idrankyourbeer

President_PUG wrote: »

REDSHELL could've saved gamers and and game makers millions

i dont think that putting spyware on our computers and not even telling us about it until after it was uncovered and legality issues arises has any benefit to me as a consumer.

its not like theyre going to drop the price of the game, send me a personal check, or god forbid lower the lovely prices of all of these wonderful crown store items and gambling crates just because one day they decided to put some spyware on my pc unbeknownst to me just so they can collect god knows what kind of data about my computer or browsing history and sell it off to who knows who or do whatever else with it that i'd be the last to know about.

i'm sure that they have plenty of reasons to try to pull something like that, but if i had to take a gander, i'd be willing to bet that they wouldnt be doing it out of my best interest at heart, or to even save me a dollar. thats for damn sure. and when companies do these kind of things and get called out on it, theyll often defend it and feed you a load of PR bullcrap straight from the horses ass like "its only in place to improve user experience" and whatnot, even though its ever so obvious theyre only out to try to make a fast buck in whatever slimy way that they can

Doctordarkspawn

If you're going to impliment something like this, you state exactly what it is, what it's doing, you let people verify that, and you answer questions and concerns from there.

YOU DO NOT IMPLIMENT IT WITHOUT PEOPLES KNOWLEDGE.

Xsorus

The fact that people were whining about this cracks me up. Everything you are doing is tracked online....everything... if you’re not accepting that you shouldn’t be reading this post because you shouldn’t own any modern electronic device.

Doctordarkspawn

Xsorus wrote: »

The fact that people were whining about this cracks me up. Everything you are doing is tracked online....everything... if you’re not accepting that you shouldn’t be reading this post because you shouldn’t own any modern electronic device.

Ain' an excuse for spyware.

Ain' an excuse for a lapse of ethics

ZOS wants to impliment this crap, they do so at their own risk. Get off your highhorse.

Onigar

Lets just look at things from the top level. To play ESO you need agree to two detailed documents that in effect allow ZOS to fully control your experience within the game.

This is fine and I am happy with this as ZOS are upfront and clear about all the conditions they apply.

Accidents in software happen, sometime we recognise them as "Bugs", other times as maybe "Oops" or even "Oh Sh*t"

To let code creep into the Live Game such as Red Shell was an error for sure but I and I believe you all want ZOS to investigate ways to keep ESO current, active and alive and continuing to provide interest for the existing player base as well as attracting new players.

The reason why someone buys a game will naturally evolve and be influenced a lot by social media as well as direct social contact. The reasons why people continue to play a particular game is more complex and with an MMO and the way players develop an involvement with the MMO community is generally believed to be a large factor.

Introducing software to help understand how to keep and grow the player base seems more like understanding social trending rather than spyware but we are all allowed our own interpretation of this.

The last thing I would say is there should always be an "opt in" and "opt out" possibility as well as a "please delete any collected data". The last point may not always be possible but "Anonymising" collected data should always be possible.

Syncronaut

Xsorus wrote: »

The fact that people were whining about this cracks me up. Everything you are doing is tracked online....everything... if you’re not accepting that you shouldn’t be reading this post because you shouldn’t own any modern electronic device.

Addblock (u-block origin), No-script, I dont care abauth cookies. Good luck tracking me.
+ Pc cleanup from time to time (CC-cleaner, Spybot search and destroy --) adds browsing protection and more)

Here is one very simple test (if you have amazon account):
Log into in and check for a random product price. Lets say there is a game for 60.
Now go out of the account, close your browser, delete cookies.
After this install/or use extension of a program that changes your IP (usefull when you want to see some youtube video locked under county non-sense).
Check the same product under a different IP on amazon. (do not log in account)
And there you have it...a product that would cost you 60, now costs 45.

If you get tracked by any kind of programs, cookies --- Everything will be more expensive.
Example:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2010/aug/07/computer-cookies-booking-online
https://lifehacker.com/5973689/how-web-sites-vary-prices-based-on-your-information-and-what-you-can-do-about-it
https://brightviolet.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/amazon-coms-price-discrimination-how-your-amazon-prime-membership-isnt-such-a-good-deal-after-all/

SantieClaws

Here is an idea that may seem revolutionary yes.

If you want to know something why not ask?

Set up a sub forum for asking marketing questions - so everyone has the full knowledge of the use of what they post.

If they wish to know what other leisure activities we pursue they could ask yes.

Do we take notice of certain kinds of adverts in certain places? Why not ask?

Shop in certain places? Ask and we may be willing to tell you.

What is our favourite colour of yarn? Well this one she prefers it to be multi-coloured.

However try and look over our shoulders to find what you seek - then do not be surprised if the reaction is one of suspicion and distrust.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

anitajoneb17_ESO

SantieClaws wrote: »

If you want to know something why not ask?

Because if we ask Santie if she ever puts a paw into other people's pockets, she will say she never does. And if you ask her if she always fishes the fish she eats, she will say she of course always does.

Sometimes if you want to know what people do it is better to watch them them than to ask them. People sometimes have weird ideas about what they do and don't, and get confused between what they do, what they should do, and what they wish they did.