How can we avoid having our human right to our data/privacy violated without deleting our account?

randconfig

I did the thing no one ever does, I read the entire new privacy policy. It's pretty telling that the only real option we have to remove our personal details from being sent to "Zennimax affiliates", including Microsoft, FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, advertising companies, social media platforms, and so on, is to delete our account. How is that a choice? You're literally taking away our rights to our data, our right to privacy, and washing your hands of liability for anything these third parties do with our data.

Also you say you'll collect our data, including personal information from social media platforms, and it may be transferred and processed outside of the United States in "other jurisdictions", and even though you could make our data safe and secure while in those other jurisdictions, as you specifically lay out for "Users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and United Kingdom", you don't. There's really only one reason you wouldn't offer those same protections to users in all other places across the globe.

The only reason you need our name, address, and payment details is to make a single transaction. Why are you holding onto all of this, as well as collecting cross-site information, and publicly available details about us from our social media platforms, combining it with our personal in-game chats, including PRIVATE WHISPERS AND MAILS, and allowing your affiliates access to all this information?

I'm so sick of having every single detail of my life and interactions online tracked and leaked between all these shady advertising companies, and who knows how many foreign governments buy it, or simply read the packet information since ZOS doesn't guarantee data security for anyone but those in the EU, in order to spy on us, use it for social engineering, or use it to manipulate our elections/politics. This has to stop, and people need to actually read the insane stuff you've written in the privacy policy.

I don't care if you ban me because I'm quoting and paraphrasing exactly what you said in the privacy policy, enough is enough.

If you agree you don't want to be tracked and spyed on by all these corporations, advertisers, or for foreign governments, scammers, and hackers to have this information, then comment below telling ZOS. They won't listen to just my complaint, but they might if the majority of the playerbase cares.

randconfig

Receipts, highlights to show the most blatantly egregious parts.

Tandor

I can't say I'm bothered, but if you are then your option is to not consent to the TOS and move on - but to what? Other games will doubtless have a similar privacy policy, or at least one in a form that you will object to.

Between central and local government departments, stores, my ISP, bank, Microsoft (through Windows), phone provider and internet sites I visit and/or subscribe to, an awful lot of people have the potential to know where I am and what I'm doing at any particular time. What they are doing with all that potential information really doesn't worry me.

If you're somehow exempt from all that snooping then fair enough and I can understand your concern about being singled out by Zenimax, but otherwise I don't see what they're doing that is any different to what's happening in your life anyway, or how you will be prejudiced by any of it. For example, if you don't like the idea that members of the public can read this open forum (which is one of your main highlighted points) then how will that affect you adversely and why then are you posting on it?

Grizzbeorn

randconfig wrote: »

Receipts, highlights to show the most blatantly egregious parts.

You might want to check the Terms and Conditions of every single company you engage with in your life, because you will doubtless find very similar "receipts" in all of them.
Zenimax is far from being unique in such Agreements.

valenwood_vegan

I mean, it's definitely good to raise awareness. Most people don't read, think about, or even care about the terms they agree to when using most modern businesses and services. It's a pervasive problem that goes well beyond eso and zenimax and microsoft and implicates many services that are far more essential than a video game and for which people don't realistically have the "choice" to reject the terms and forego internet access, or a cell phone, or banking services, etc.

But ultimately this is a political issue well beyond the scope of this forum - I'd suggest contacting one's elected officials and reaching out to / supporting / getting involved with non-profits or advocacy groups focused on data privacy issues.

The EU and the state of California in the US, for example, have been able to enact fairly extensive data privacy laws. Change is clearly possible through the political system assuming one lives in a part of the world where that's open to them; but that is likely where it will need to come from and the pace may be slower than desired.

ssewallb14_ESO

This is the world now, sorry.

Your only chance of fighting this is at the political level, assuming your country even allows for it.

randconfig

Tandor wrote: »

I can't say I'm bothered, but if you are then your option is to not consent to the TOS and move on - but to what? Other games will doubtless have a similar privacy policy, or at least one in a form that you will object to.

I can name any number of games that have online multiplayer that don't make their players the product. At least social media companies give me a service for "free" in exchange for tracking and selling my information.

Tandor wrote: »

Between central and local government departments, stores, my ISP, bank, Microsoft (through Windows), phone provider and internet sites I visit and/or subscribe to, an awful lot of people have the potential to know where I am and what I'm doing at any particular time. What they are doing with all that potential information really doesn't worry me.

"Saying you don't care about data privacy because you've got nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you've got nothing to say today" - Edward Snowden

Tandor wrote: »

If you're somehow exempt from all that snooping then fair enough and I can understand your concern about being singled out by Zenimax, but otherwise I don't see what they're doing that is any different to what's happening in your life anyway, or how you will be prejudiced by any of it. For example, if you don't like the idea that members of the public can read this open forum (which is one of your main highlighted points) then how will that affect you adversely and why then are you posting on it?

The issue is the slow invisible creep of surveillance systems we can’t vote against. If people cannot communicate in private, then no one will be able to speak out when it counts for fear of being attacked. It's already adversely affecting all of us, just look at the state of politics.

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

You might want to check the Terms and Conditions of every single company you engage with in your life, because you will doubtless find very similar "receipts" in all of them.
Zenimax is far from being unique in such Agreements.

Well I don't agree to the Terms and Conditions of every single company, and especially not ones that help build a surveillance state. ESO is a video game, there's literally no reason they need this information, or for their "affiliates" and "other jurisdictions"/governments to have access to what I do in my personal life.

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

But ultimately this is a political issue well beyond the scope of this forum - I'd suggest contacting one's elected officials and reaching out to / supporting / getting involved with non-profits or advocacy groups focused on data privacy issues.

It's not a political issue, it's a human issue, and since ZOS made it part of the ESO game service, ZOS made it "political". So it's absolutely not beyond the scope of the forums.

randconfig

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

This is the world now, sorry.

Your only chance of fighting this is at the political level, assuming your country even allows for it.

Or I can stop spending $1000s of dollars on ESO every year in response. Either they can make a few extra bucks by compromising our information, while losing the $1000s I would spend on the game, or they can stop violating our rights, and I'll continue to play and spend money.

freespirit

Do you ever play silly little games on your phone/tablet?

Do you read their terms if you do? They are truly intrusive btw!

I didn't have a phone for many, many years, recently I had to get one, I was extremely careful what I put on it and what access I allowed. I put no games, no social media etc etc and still within a week I was getting unsolicited calls to that phone.

I was very confused until I found the culprit....... guess what my sim provider had the fact they were allowed to sell on my details buried deep in their ToC's

It truly is very hard to be anonymous these days, even your fridge freezer(if new enough) can listen in on you!!

valenwood_vegan

randconfig wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

But ultimately this is a political issue well beyond the scope of this forum - I'd suggest contacting one's elected officials and reaching out to / supporting / getting involved with non-profits or advocacy groups focused on data privacy issues.

It's not a political issue, it's a human issue, and since ZOS made it part of the ESO game service, ZOS made it "political". So it's absolutely not beyond the scope of the forums, it's part of ESO now.

Just to avoid any misconceptions, I am not saying that one shouldn't talk about zenimax or eso's policies on this forum. I am saying the *issue of data privacy* is great in scope and beyond resolution on a small gaming forum in a corner of the internet (and a place people aren't necessarily coming to with the goal of addressing these real world issues) - and this is why I also offered suggestions for ways to advocate for the issue outside of this one particular instance.

Anyway, as I also specifically stated, it's good to raise awareness and thank you for doing so, for those players who never read the terms they're signing. Best of luck.

Soarora

There’s something in there about opting out iirc, but yeah, it’s unfortunate. ESO is the one (1) thing I don’t care about being tracked with because every TES ad I get is taking up the space that some other more annoying ad would’ve had. But calling in-game messages public information is yikes and this is edging (if not jumping) into too far. It’s much too far if you do care about not being tracked even with ESO. But realistically, can’t do much unfortunately if you want to keep playing. Try opting out, be aware of what you say in-game… I’m not on the tech side so I’m not sure if limiting usage of ZOS websites would do anything. Check your cookies though.

randconfig

freespirit wrote: »

Do you ever play silly little games on your phone/tablet?

Do you read their terms if you do? They are truly intrusive btw!

I didn't have a phone for many, many years, recently I had to get one, I was extremely careful what I put on it and what access I allowed. I put no games, no social media etc etc and still within a week I was getting unsolicited calls to that phone.

I was very confused until I found the culprit....... guess what my sim provider had the fact they were allowed to sell on my details buried deep in their ToC's

It truly is very hard to be anonymous these days, even your fridge freezer(if new enough) can listen in on you!!

It wouldn't be so bad if those individual companies were the only ones with that data, but they're working in a vast network to consolidate all the information on everyone, and further automate the data collection process.

This is how you get a survilence state like China, where you cannot do anything if you disagree with your government. Just imagine, either Trump or Obama, imprisoning you for speaking against them while playing some innocent video game. That's the insane world we're heading towards. Freedom of speech means nothing if you're too afraid to speak because every single home has cameras, every phone is listening, and even in MMOs like ESO, your chats are being run through a chaptGPT large language model to check for anything to flag.

IT'S AI MODERATION, BUT INSTEAD OF FOR A VIDEO GAME, IT'S FOR REAL LIFE.

So everyone, please speak up and against this as much as you possibly can. And yes, I work as a computer scientist/software engineer. Originally all of this was a good thing, smart systems working together to make the world a better place, like automating the measurements of farm weather data in Brazil and transferring that to an Amazon Web Service for data processing, and then to a Neo4J database for storage, where the data could be used to help farmers increase crop yields. But now they're being weaponized for economic and political power, and even in a simple MMORPG like ESO, you're not safe, then you're not safe anywhere.

This also applies to you ZOS devs and moderation team! If you cannot speak in confidentiality from the higher ups monitoring your communications, how can you ever organize for things like better pay benefits, or to unioninze. It's all a slippery slope, if we're not already sliding down.

AngryPenguin

randconfig wrote: »

I did the thing no one ever does, I read the entire new privacy policy. It's pretty telling that the only real option we have to remove our personal details from being sent to "Zennimax affiliates", including Microsoft, FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, advertising companies, social media platforms, and so on, is to delete our account. How is that a choice? You're literally taking away our rights to our data, our right to privacy, and washing your hands of liability for anything these third parties do with our data.

Also you say you'll collect our data, including personal information from social media platforms, and it may be transferred and processed outside of the United States in "other jurisdictions", and even though you could make our data safe and secure while in those other jurisdictions, as you specifically lay out for "Users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and United Kingdom", you don't. There's really only one reason you wouldn't offer those same protections to users in all other places across the globe.

The only reason you need our name, address, and payment details is to make a single transaction. Why are you holding onto all of this, as well as collecting cross-site information, and publicly available details about us from our social media platforms, combining it with our personal in-game chats, including PRIVATE WHISPERS AND MAILS, and allowing your affiliates access to all this information?

I'm so sick of having every single detail of my life and interactions online tracked and leaked between all these shady advertising companies, and who knows how many foreign governments buy it, or simply read the packet information since ZOS doesn't guarantee data security for anyone but those in the EU, in order to spy on us, use it for social engineering, or use it to manipulate our elections/politics. This has to stop, and people need to actually read the insane stuff you've written in the privacy policy.

I don't care if you ban me because I'm quoting and paraphrasing exactly what you said in the privacy policy, enough is enough.

If you agree you don't want to be tracked and spyed on by all these corporations, advertisers, or for foreign governments, scammers, and hackers to have this information, then comment below telling ZOS. They won't listen to just my complaint, but they might if the majority of the playerbase cares.

I read it too, at least part of it. It's a worrying state when most digital software providers have EULA's like this, but that's what it is now days. The user information companies gather is just as much or more a commodity they sell and trade as their actual product is. They're ironclad legaleze that releases the company of any liability for anything they might do. If you want to use their product you will agree. Period.

It's good that some countries are cracking down on EULA's like this latest one we were forced to agree to. We shouldn't have to agree to be a product that digital software companies buy and sell just because we want to use a given software program.

ssewallb14_ESO

randconfig wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

This is the world now, sorry.

Your only chance of fighting this is at the political level, assuming your country even allows for it.

Or I can stop spending $1000s of dollars on ESO every year in response. Either they can make a few extra bucks by compromising our information, while losing the $1000s I would spend on the game, or they can stop violating our rights, and I'll continue to play and spend money.

You'll find every megacorp backed company to have similar data collection policies. Your phone, PC, and increasingly public surveillance are also monetized in a similar way through the same kind of "consent."

Perhaps consider the cabin in the woods approach?

randconfig

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

This is the world now, sorry.

Your only chance of fighting this is at the political level, assuming your country even allows for it.

Or I can stop spending $1000s of dollars on ESO every year in response. Either they can make a few extra bucks by compromising our information, while losing the $1000s I would spend on the game, or they can stop violating our rights, and I'll continue to play and spend money.

You'll find every megacorp backed company to have similar data collection policies. Your phone, PC, and increasingly public surveillance are also monetized in a similar way through the same kind of "consent."

Perhaps consider the cabin in the woods approach?

Buy a Google Pixel phone, then delete Google OS and install GrapheneOS.

Uninstall Windows from your PC, install Linux.

Use a virtual machine to run any of these corporations "software" (spyware), that way they have no access to your information.

Don't just give in because so many of them are grossly abusing consumer rights, now more than ever we need civil disobedience and to speak up for our right to privacy, our right to our data.

AngryPenguin

It's called data mining. It's the new gold rush.

USE A PROXY SERVER! For almost everything you do online now days, if you value any kind of privacy at all, you must use a proxy server. Even that isn't enough, but at least it's something.

Privacy still matters in life. We shouldn't be signing away our rights to privacy or free speech.

Elvenheart

I guess the only thing a person could do would be to cancel all of their accounts they have with any business, cut up their credit cards, give up their phone, probably even switching to a landline wouldn’t be enough. Definitely don’t ever log onto the Internet again, and move into a yurt in the middle of nowhere and become totally self-sufficient. That might be one good step toward protecting your privacy.

AngryPenguin

Elvenheart wrote: »

I guess the only thing a person could do would be to cancel all of their accounts they have with any business, cut up their credit cards, give up their phone, probably even switching to a landline wouldn’t be enough. Definitely don’t ever log onto the Internet again, and move into a yurt in the middle of nowhere and become totally self-sufficient. That might be one good step toward protecting your privacy.

For the phone use a burner phone. The per minute fees are high, but at least you're not lowjacking yourself like giving your pet a pit tag.

ssewallb14_ESO

randconfig wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

This is the world now, sorry.

Your only chance of fighting this is at the political level, assuming your country even allows for it.

Or I can stop spending $1000s of dollars on ESO every year in response. Either they can make a few extra bucks by compromising our information, while losing the $1000s I would spend on the game, or they can stop violating our rights, and I'll continue to play and spend money.

You'll find every megacorp backed company to have similar data collection policies. Your phone, PC, and increasingly public surveillance are also monetized in a similar way through the same kind of "consent."

Perhaps consider the cabin in the woods approach?

Buy a Google Pixel phone, then delete Google OS and install GrapheneOS.

Uninstall Windows from your PC, install Linux.

Use a virtual machine to run any of these corporations "software" (spyware), that way they have no access to your information.

Don't just give in because so many of them are grossly abusing consumer rights, now more than ever we need civil disobedience and to speak up for our right to privacy, our right to our data.

Hey, I love your enthusiasm, and am glad to see people taking steps to protect themselves (I've done several of the above).

All I'm saying is we're well beyond the point of individual consumer backlash being a viable way to end this.

aetherix8

Elvenheart wrote: »

I guess the only thing a person could do would be to cancel all of their accounts they have with any business, cut up their credit cards, give up their phone, probably even switching to a landline wouldn’t be enough. Definitely don’t ever log onto the Internet again, and move into a yurt in the middle of nowhere and become totally self-sufficient. That might be one good step toward protecting your privacy.

Even in such a case we would still somehow get some ppl coming down to the middle of nowhere to offer us this real chic prepper bunker. I mean, when it comes to keeping private stuff private, it seems to be beyond hope.

It doesn't surprise me to see such an invasive policy, as much as it is egregious, it is nowadays all over the place. Also, too many people share far too much stuff online.

Thank you OP for this thread. It is extremly important that we understand to which degree we're not consumers anymore, but products that can be sold, resold and exposed to targeted manipulation in this era of "surveillance capitalism".

SkaiFaith

randconfig wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

This is the world now, sorry.

Your only chance of fighting this is at the political level, assuming your country even allows for it.

Or I can stop spending $1000s of dollars on ESO every year in response. Either they can make a few extra bucks by compromising our information, while losing the $1000s I would spend on the game, or they can stop violating our rights, and I'll continue to play and spend money.

You'll find every megacorp backed company to have similar data collection policies. Your phone, PC, and increasingly public surveillance are also monetized in a similar way through the same kind of "consent."

Perhaps consider the cabin in the woods approach?

Buy a Google Pixel phone, then delete Google OS and install GrapheneOS.

Uninstall Windows from your PC, install Linux.

Use a virtual machine to run any of these corporations "software" (spyware), that way they have no access to your information.

Don't just give in because so many of them are grossly abusing consumer rights, now more than ever we need civil disobedience and to speak up for our right to privacy, our right to our data.

Careful buddy, otherwise Thought Police gonna knock on your door sooner or later XD
Jokes aside, I'm on your side.

Hotdog_23

Tandor wrote: »

I can't say I'm bothered, but if you are then your option is to not consent to the TOS and move on - but to what? Other games will doubtless have a similar privacy policy, or at least one in a form that you will object to.

Between central and local government departments, stores, my ISP, bank, Microsoft (through Windows), phone provider and internet sites I visit and/or subscribe to, an awful lot of people have the potential to know where I am and what I'm doing at any particular time. What they are doing with all that potential information really doesn't worry me.

If you're somehow exempt from all that snooping then fair enough and I can understand your concern about being singled out by Zenimax, but otherwise I don't see what they're doing that is any different to what's happening in your life anyway, or how you will be prejudiced by any of it. For example, if you don't like the idea that members of the public can read this open forum (which is one of your main highlighted points) then how will that affect you adversely and why then are you posting on it?

I agree with you, but it’s sad that we have become so accustomed to 3rd parties having so much data about us and their rights to it. See it as more of a government issue with allowing 3rd parties to collect and maintain so much information about us. The right to privacy is not really a thing anymore and has not been for many years.

Stay safe

Mathius_Mordred

The simple solution is this: For every service, such as this and social media, you use a fake account. Create an online persona that is made up. Every single detail you give is fake. You can use a heavily disguised PayPal account to pay for stuff, too. Ads don't work for me as I use UBlock Origin for everything. Most web pages I see have no ads at all, YouTube never has ads for me, and I don't pay for Premium. There are many ways to avoid anyone knowing anything real about you. I don't say anything in game chat that isn't game-related. You can also use services like Incogni to remove data if you are that worried.

Now, what would concern me is if I found out that Discord is recording and selling our voice chats, haha.

Regarding political views, I know in our guild, discussing Politics is strictly forbidden on all our platforms. I know one of our members, a lovely lady, just got kicked from her other guild because she showed some support for Trump. I have my views on Trump, like everyone else, but I don't publicise them in the game or game-related services; all that does is cause disagreement between members. We are here to play and enjoy a fantasy game; if we want politics, we can switch on the news.

Good work flagging this up, but for the reasons I gave above, frankly, they can give my data to anyone; it won't help them.

Toanis

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

The simple solution is this: For every service, such as this and social media, you use a fake account. Create an online persona that is made up. Every single detail you give is fake. You can use a heavily disguised PayPal account to pay for stuff, too.

The problem is governments don't like fake personas. The UK's Online Safety Act forces any website wanting to do business in the UK to collect the ID from UK citizens, to make sure they are of appropriate age, and the EU is already watching eagerly.

redlink1979

I understand your frustation but sadly this is how the world is nowadays: companies/businesses always need your personnal info to make things happen.

dcrush

redlink1979 wrote: »

I understand your frustation but sadly this is how the world is nowadays: companies/businesses always want your personal info to make additional money from selling it to undisclosed third parties.

Corrected it for you.

Tandor

Toanis wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

The simple solution is this: For every service, such as this and social media, you use a fake account. Create an online persona that is made up. Every single detail you give is fake. You can use a heavily disguised PayPal account to pay for stuff, too.

The problem is governments don't like fake personas. The UK's Online Safety Act forces any website wanting to do business in the UK to collect the ID from UK citizens, to make sure they are of appropriate age, and the EU is already watching eagerly.

Yes they force websites to use age verification, but users aren't forced to use it. Record downloads of VPNs were recorded when the Act was implemented, and there are also specific and highly reputable browsers that serve the same purpose and are strongly recommended wherever secure access is required. This is the problem for nosy governments and companies, users are always streets ahead of them when it comes to getting round such things.

Danikat

randconfig wrote: »

Also you say you'll collect our data, including personal information from social media platforms, and it may be transferred and processed outside of the United States in "other jurisdictions", and even though you could make our data safe and secure while in those other jurisdictions, as you specifically lay out for "Users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and United Kingdom", you don't. There's really only one reason you wouldn't offer those same protections to users in all other places across the globe.

They only do that for the EEA and UK because it's a legal requirement. It's part of GDPR that any data collected has to be kept secure, regardless of where in the world it's stored. (A lot of European companies won't use US-based servers or partner companies because they can't confirm they're compliant.)

The solution (and I realise this isn't practical for one individual) is to make it a legal requirement in your country that companies keep data secure and give their customers more control over what is collected and how it's used. I think California has some similar requirements, which is why they also get their own section of exemptions in T&Cs, but it probably needs to be something nation wide to be really effective.

Toanis wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

The simple solution is this: For every service, such as this and social media, you use a fake account. Create an online persona that is made up. Every single detail you give is fake. You can use a heavily disguised PayPal account to pay for stuff, too.

The problem is governments don't like fake personas. The UK's Online Safety Act forces any website wanting to do business in the UK to collect the ID from UK citizens, to make sure they are of appropriate age, and the EU is already watching eagerly.

That's only for certain services. I'm in the UK and haven't needed to give my ID to any websites so far. The only effect I've noticed is some posts on Bluesky are hidden because they're labelled as adult content, but that only bothers me because it's often an incorrect classification by a bot, I'm not using it to see actual *** or whatever, so I don't mind if it's hidden. (I don't mind if I see it either, but I'm not going to hand out my ID to random companies for the chance to unexpectedly get *** in the mix of posts I see.)

A lot of people in the UK do use fake 'personas' online, although I feel like that makes it sound more elaborate than it usually is. Most of the time it means having an email address you only use when signing up to sites you don't trust with your main email and a fake date of birth for standard age verification. Maybe using an old address instead of your current one for the rare times you're asked for an address and it's not to get something delivered.

JustLovely

I cringe every time I see EULA's like this.

The company could just shorten it to " The company can do no wrong and you have no rights in dealing with us" and leave it at that. At least a statement like this would be clear and understandable instead of a bunch of legal jargon.

DenverRalphy

One thing many end users of those agreement don't realize, is that it's more for legal reasons. ie.. processing payments to a bank may necessitate your data (name, payment info, etc..) crossing international/country borders. Content posted to forums can be viewed worldwide, so that data too crosses borders. Publicly posted content on the forums can be shared to social media by anyone, not just the site owners, so that needs to be covered legally too. etc.. etc..

But when read out of context, anything can look suspect and super scary.

Horace-Wimp

You're welcome.