I'm gonna be honest, I didn't read a whole lot of the thread, but some of the people on the "useful side" are argumenting really strangely. (Not that the "invasive side" isn't)

A lot of it can be summarized as "what are you afraid of if you got nothing to hide?" I really don't like that argument because it's difficult to answer. A lot of people are uncomfortable with getting their data recorded and kept track off. You can expect a lot of these people to take precautions to not get tracked by Google etc either, as futile as that might be. I for one don't trust my Windows 10 enough that I installed some extra stuff to stop it from constantly tracking what I do and completely disabled Cortana. I am also not on Facebook and barely use my phone.
I guess you could call it paranoia, but I see paranoia as being afraid of being watched when no one is watching, while here we actually are being watched.

Personally, I will still use this feature as I don't think it is malicious in nature or will end up selling any useful data, but I'd prefer the default to be anonymous or SaltySudd's suggestion. And if anyone disagrees, I'm turning the tables on you and ask "What do you have to lose if the feature is anonymous on default?"

Taking a look at Canadian Privacy Laws, ZOS must ensure there is Meaningful Consent to allow a third party site any access to any of our personal data.

This tracker allows for this Third Party site to have access to:
- What I do in game
- What date and time I do it
- Access to my character names and game username associated with those characters
- Access to each button press I do while playing in game.
- Do those logs also contain my IP address and Video Card ID? I won't know until someone gets a good look at them.
- This allows another player to post data about my character and playing habits.
- We have to claim our characters through the third party website if we realize at a later time, that this option is set on because we were not properly notified about the change upon coming back to the game at a later date. This will require giving this third party company more private information to confirm the account and character are ours.


To have Meaningful Consent under Canadian Privacy laws:
ZOS and the Company must disclose the following to the consumer Must:

- Make privacy information readily available in complete form, while giving emphasis or bringing attention to four key elements: - What personal information is being collected, with sufficient precision for individuals to meaningfully understand what they are consenting to.
- With which parties personal information is being shared
- For what purposes personal information is being collected, used or disclosed, in sufficient detail for individuals to meaningfully understand what they are consenting to.
- Risks of harm and other consequences

- Provide information in manageable and easily-accessible ways.

- Make available to individuals a clear and easily accessible choice for any collection, use or disclosure that is not necessary to provide the product or service.

- Consider the perspective of your consumers, to ensure consent processes are user-friendly and generally understandable.

- Obtain consent when making significant changes to privacy practices, including use of data for new purposes or disclosures to new third parties.

- Only collect, use or disclose personal information for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate, under the circumstances.

- Allow individuals to withdraw consent (subject to legal or contractual restrictions).


ZOS must also provide us with Clear Option to agree or disagree with the sharing of our information.
Individuals cannot be required to consent to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information beyond what is necessary to provide the product or service – they must be given a choice.
These choices must be explained clearly and made easily accessible. Whether each choice is most appropriately ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’ will depend on factors discussed in the “Form of Consent” section of this document.

(This tool is NOT a necessary product or service. We've played 5yrs without it. And consoles are not getting it. Players who don't want it can live without it!)

Collections, uses or disclosures of personal information over which the individual cannot assert any control (other than to not use a product or service) are called conditions of service. For a collection, use, or disclosure to be a valid condition of service, it must be integral to the provision of that product or service such that it is required to fulfill its explicitly specified and legitimate purpose. Organizations should be transparent and prepared to explain why any given collection, use or disclosure is a condition of service, particularly if it is not obvious.

Otherwise, for all other collections, uses and disclosures, individuals must be given a choice (unless an exception to the general consent requirement applies).

(You are trying to force this program on everyone, and record every players logs whether they want them recorded or not. Anonymizing the character name is not enough. If a player doesn't want to participate in any way, they should not be forced to.)

ZOS must be accountable: Stand ready to demonstrate compliance
Organizations, when asked, should be in a position to demonstrate compliance, and in particular that the consent process they have implemented is sufficiently understandable from the general perspective of their target audience(s) as to allow for valid and meaningful consent.

In order for an organization to demonstrate that it has obtained valid consent, pointing to a line buried in a privacy policy will not suffice. Instead, organizations should be able to demonstrate – either in the case of a complaint from an individual or a proactive query from a privacy regulator – that they have a process in place to obtain consent from individuals, and that such process is compliant with the consent obligations set out in legislation. This is an integral part of not only the consent process, but of an effective accountability regime.

(Hiding permissions in the Terms of Service and then putting the option to ESO Logs by default automatically "ON" is not valid consent! We, the Player, MUST make the choice ourselves to turn it on.)

Reasonable expectations
In determining the appropriate form of consent, organizations should also consider the reasonable expectations of the individual in the circumstances. For example, if there is a use or disclosure a user would not reasonably expect to be occurring, such as certain sharing of information with a third party, the downloading of photos or contact lists, or the tracking of location, express consent would likely be required.

(I don't want a Third Party Company having any of my information without my permission, particularly if it is information that is non-essential to the general use of ESO. Example: ZOS needs my Credit card and Address and has to provide those to Third Party banks for processing, only because it is an essential business practice for them to get paid for the service they provide. ZOS needs my game logs on their end to track bugs and other issues within their algorithms to fix issues with the game. Having my game logs for a third party application for stats tracking is not essential to the game play of ESO. Therefore, you are not entitled to them, if I do not wish to give permission for you to use them.)

So, by Canadian Law, this Third Party Website and program are not essential to the every day operation and play of ESO. (The game has been without it for 5 years, and Consoles are not getting this). ZOS would be required to put a full opt-out option, allowing players to not have any of their data recorded without meaningful consent. (Turning it "ON" themselves).

Additionally, seeing the responses by Muh, I'm very concerned about third party site having access to any of my information, whether or not it is anonymized and what they are doing with it outside of the scope of this program. You are not entitled to my information!!!

There is no reason why this program should not exist for people who wish to use it. HOWEVER, ALL parties being recorded must consent, or no recording should be happening at all.

I think, until ZOS can implement it this way, it's within their best interest to keep it out of the game.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Taking a look at Canadian Privacy Laws, ZOS must ensure there is Meaningful Consent to allow a third party site any access to any of our personal data.
[...]

@Nebthet78
Great response. For that to be complete though, you need to include what Canadian Privacy Laws consider "personal data". For example the German Data Protection law specifically includes pseudonyms and it is not required for your actual name to appear anywhere if an individual can be recognized. E.g. "The current prime minister of Canada drives a red car" is personal data because from context you can determine who is being talked about. I'd say this applies here as in a group of 4 it's easy to figure out who "anonymous player 2" is.

In Canada we have 3 sections under Privacy. PIPEDA, The Privacy Act, plus there are the Federal Privacy Laws:
But in general:
Personal information is data about an “identifiable individual”. It is information that on its own or combined with other pieces of data, can identify you as an individual.

The Privacy Act offers protections for personal information, which it defines as any recorded information “about an identifiable individual.”

this reacharound method of trying to get dps logs is terrible, just allow for dps meters and disallow negativity/abuse for those not up to par. this whole tip toe "we wont show you because itll hurt someones feelings" is awful mentality and does not help the community

Could someone, please, provide a list of data this third party application stores about players that have not been warned prior to recording the data nor have explicitly given consent for such an act?

If another player uses this application without my consent and without me even knowing about it, does it record incoming chat messages? Does it record all keys I press, hence allowing the reconstruction of all chat messages I send?

If so and it is sanctioned by ZOS, I am going to cancel my subscription and leave ESO. This is too dangerous. I don't want some completely obscure and unidentifiable third party to gather and store such sensitive information about me, without my consent.

Make the application opt-in, and there won't be any such problems.

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Taking a look at Canadian Privacy Laws, ZOS must ensure there is Meaningful Consent to allow a third party site any access to any of our personal data.

This tracker allows for this Third Party site to have access to:
- What I do in game
- What date and time I do it
- Access to my character names and game username associated with those characters
- Access to each button press I do while playing in game.
- Do those logs also contain my IP address and Video Card ID? I won't know until someone gets a good look at them.
- This allows another player to post data about my character and playing habits.
- We have to claim our characters through the third party website if we realize at a later time, that this option is set on because we were not properly notified about the change upon coming back to the game at a later date. This will require giving this third party company more private information to confirm the account and character are ours.


To have Meaningful Consent under Canadian Privacy laws:
ZOS and the Company must disclose the following to the consumer Must:

- Make privacy information readily available in complete form, while giving emphasis or bringing attention to four key elements: - What personal information is being collected, with sufficient precision for individuals to meaningfully understand what they are consenting to.
- With which parties personal information is being shared
- For what purposes personal information is being collected, used or disclosed, in sufficient detail for individuals to meaningfully understand what they are consenting to.
- Risks of harm and other consequences

- Provide information in manageable and easily-accessible ways.

- Make available to individuals a clear and easily accessible choice for any collection, use or disclosure that is not necessary to provide the product or service.

- Consider the perspective of your consumers, to ensure consent processes are user-friendly and generally understandable.

- Obtain consent when making significant changes to privacy practices, including use of data for new purposes or disclosures to new third parties.

- Only collect, use or disclose personal information for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate, under the circumstances.

- Allow individuals to withdraw consent (subject to legal or contractual restrictions).


ZOS must also provide us with Clear Option to agree or disagree with the sharing of our information.
Individuals cannot be required to consent to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information beyond what is necessary to provide the product or service – they must be given a choice.
These choices must be explained clearly and made easily accessible. Whether each choice is most appropriately ‘opt-in’ or ‘opt-out’ will depend on factors discussed in the “Form of Consent” section of this document.

(This tool is NOT a necessary product or service. We've played 5yrs without it. And consoles are not getting it. Players who don't want it can live without it!)

Collections, uses or disclosures of personal information over which the individual cannot assert any control (other than to not use a product or service) are called conditions of service. For a collection, use, or disclosure to be a valid condition of service, it must be integral to the provision of that product or service such that it is required to fulfill its explicitly specified and legitimate purpose. Organizations should be transparent and prepared to explain why any given collection, use or disclosure is a condition of service, particularly if it is not obvious.

Otherwise, for all other collections, uses and disclosures, individuals must be given a choice (unless an exception to the general consent requirement applies).

(You are trying to force this program on everyone, and record every players logs whether they want them recorded or not. Anonymizing the character name is not enough. If a player doesn't want to participate in any way, they should not be forced to.)

ZOS must be accountable: Stand ready to demonstrate compliance
Organizations, when asked, should be in a position to demonstrate compliance, and in particular that the consent process they have implemented is sufficiently understandable from the general perspective of their target audience(s) as to allow for valid and meaningful consent.

In order for an organization to demonstrate that it has obtained valid consent, pointing to a line buried in a privacy policy will not suffice. Instead, organizations should be able to demonstrate – either in the case of a complaint from an individual or a proactive query from a privacy regulator – that they have a process in place to obtain consent from individuals, and that such process is compliant with the consent obligations set out in legislation. This is an integral part of not only the consent process, but of an effective accountability regime.

(Hiding permissions in the Terms of Service and then putting the option to ESO Logs by default automatically "ON" is not valid consent! We, the Player, MUST make the choice ourselves to turn it on.)

Reasonable expectations
In determining the appropriate form of consent, organizations should also consider the reasonable expectations of the individual in the circumstances. For example, if there is a use or disclosure a user would not reasonably expect to be occurring, such as certain sharing of information with a third party, the downloading of photos or contact lists, or the tracking of location, express consent would likely be required.

(I don't want a Third Party Company having any of my information without my permission, particularly if it is information that is non-essential to the general use of ESO. Example: ZOS needs my Credit card and Address and has to provide those to Third Party banks for processing, only because it is an essential business practice for them to get paid for the service they provide. ZOS needs my game logs on their end to track bugs and other issues within their algorithms to fix issues with the game. Having my game logs for a third party application for stats tracking is not essential to the game play of ESO. Therefore, you are not entitled to them, if I do not wish to give permission for you to use them.)

So, by Canadian Law, this Third Party Website and program are not essential to the every day operation and play of ESO. (The game has been without it for 5 years, and Consoles are not getting this). ZOS would be required to put a full opt-out option, allowing players to not have any of their data recorded without meaningful consent. (Turning it "ON" themselves).

Additionally, seeing the responses by Muh, I'm very concerned about third party site having access to any of my information, whether or not it is anonymized and what they are doing with it outside of the scope of this program. You are not entitled to my information!!!

There is no reason why this program should not exist for people who wish to use it. HOWEVER, ALL parties being recorded must consent, or no recording should be happening at all.

I think, until ZOS can implement it this way, it's within their best interest to keep it out of the game.

I guess you don't play WoW of FF14 or any shooter/moba in the past decade. This is probably the most braindead post ever.

If it was truly illegal than you should sue WoW and FF14 then as it's been in their games for years.

If you don't like the tool don't use it. Who cares if someone knows your performance cause they already know anyway. You are more likely to get kicked by complaining about this than for doing 20k dps.

LiquidPony wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

muh wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Well, muh, you don't seem to get the privacy concerns, so the rest of your blather is useless. And your "fairly certain" is certainly NOT something to give people confidence.

Unfortunately you don't help to enlighten me either, all I get from you is deflection. Instead of answering or explaining how this is intruding anyones privacy you go over to... I don't even know what you tried to accomplish here. It seems like you didn't even bother to read anything but the last section, though.

All I get from you is that you just don't understand how it works at all. This isn't automatically uploaded by Zenimax, this isn't uploaded real time. This isn't automatically uploaded at all. This does not include anything but abilities you used or you've been hit with and your character name if you don't set it to annonymous.

The way you talk about it doesn't seem like you're afraid that someone can bash your dps with it, but you're in fear for your life. Like why?

I'm also not affiliated with them, except that I am one of their Patreon supporter. And apparently getting personally attacked by you. You're building a great case for yourself.

Hey Muh,

If you don’t think that someone secretly recording my playing performance and then posting it (again without my knowledge or consent) to a third party website to which I have no access ISN’T a gross violation of my privacy and morally repugnant, I humbly suggest you are in denial.

Being able to record MY metrics for MY use with MY consent is a great idea.

Having a dps gestapo looking over your shoulder isn’t.

How is someone else recording your performance, though?

If you don't enable logging, your performance isn't being recorded.

If I understood it corectly, all your actions (movment, skills you use, proc sets that you use etc.) are beeing recorded. The only thing that you can select not to record is your in-game nick.
Depending on how it will work it could be easy to by-pass if for example we will be able to name our upload (to esologs website) or add description to it containing player character names.

Btw. I can see a different problem here:
You use group finder to pug the dungeon. Someone else in your group enables log recerding for 5 seconds. Opens created file in a notepad. Sees that you have set it to anonymus. Vote-kicks you out of dungeon.

I feel like the people who are saying it's invasive don't understand what a combat logger is, and that's kind of sad.

If you're worried about being kicked from a pug group over bad dps, tanking or heals, I can tell you no one needs a combat log to know you're not doing well. It's easily determined by your actions in game (or lack thereof), how fast the dungeon or raid is progressing and through other already existing add-ons like combat metrics. For the most part no one cares and you've already been forgotten whether the group is successful or not. This is the nature of pug groups.

What a detailed combat logger (read; combat logger, not real life personal data logger) is useful for is your own self improvement and for more advanced, organized raid groups to help them improve or get a better understanding of everything that's going on in their group. That's it. It's really that simple.

All this fear mongering and talking about different countries laws and what not is ridiculous and insane. People are blowing this waaaay out of proportion.

Yea... Like some of the stuff ... that "it" will dump chat logs or record individual key presses... Sorry, but I thought people freaking out here would have at least some understanding of what they're talking about.

What is Event Logging?
Event Logging is a feature implemented by ZOS. It writes combat actions / abilities that are processed by the game and sent to the server into a text file. It does not write that you're spamming your left mouse button, it is not a key logger. It does not include chat messages. That some here still haven't figured that out after 15 pages of discussion is incredible.

ZOS provides an in-game option that allows you to either opt-in to have your character name written to logs, or it is opt-in to be anonymized within a log. Which one of the two options it will be is as far as we know not clear. No one here is forcing anyone to share names, most people here are fine with it being anonymized by default.

All data written to the combat log is covered in their privacy policy. The privacy policy also allows that data to be shared. You all accepted this privacy policy already... just saying.
And before you start disecting this with your google degree in world wide law, don't you think ZOS has actual lawyers that would have told them they can't do what they're about to implement? We've had I think two people in here that said they are responsible for implementing GDPR compliance in their company. Don't you think ZOS has at least one person who does the same for them?

What is ESOLogs.com?
ESOLogs is a website that allows people to upload eventlogs created by ESO to be processed to make them humanly readable. That is all. The same way guns don't kill people, logs don't harass/abuse people. People harass people. Yet we still have guns.
It also creates leaderboards that list player performances in various apsects of the game from good to bad. Not the other way around. It highlights good players, not bad players.

ESOLogs is not real time, in fact it is delayed quite a lot. It will not replace CMX. It will not cause more people to become abusive to others. It will not cause less people to be abusive. It will change nothing to the current state of the community. People already know who is and who isn't bad by using their eyes in real time in game.
If you are set to anonymous in game (again we don't know if it'll be default or not) you can't be searched on ESOLogs.com. People can share direct links to a log they have uploaded, but now it is on them to prove that "Anonymous" is in reality "Character Name" which is "UserID". That is if they'd go out and share it on reddit or some other form of social media to shame anyone after the fact.
Just to bring some more reality into this 16 page and ongoing fictional masterpiece that some of you are crowdsourcing here.

There you have it, but feel free to continue your fight against windmills as much as you like.

Oh I understood very well that you only want to have everything you do ingame clientside just for you. You want to strip out the Online part out of MMO.

If I make a video ingame with you in it and upload that to youtube, do I need your consent (Edit: or by your logic is ZOS required to get your consent that I tell my recording program that I start recording video footage)? If so, well we shouldn't have graphical representations of anything in game or all names and character models have to be anonymized going forward.

The log written by ESO is not shared by ZOS, but by their players. So it's all about ESO writing combat data to log files.

Edit2: Playing online games is engaging in public media, everything you do is shared. You can't go on twitter, post something and start a tantrum because twitter allowed someone to make a screenshot of it and share it somewhere else.

Could probably come up with more comparisons. But this is pretty much what you're complaining about.

I say useful....but i have been victim of the negative side of it as well. Back when i use to play WoW (Cataclysm) i would get singled out in a raid or dungeon for low DPS. Some people where helpful....most were toxic...but I took it in stride. Went online...googled builds/rotations/etc. I got better, and after a few months i was doing good dps and wasn't getting singled out anymore.

Now in Eso, I've literally seen dps only using bow light attacks and snipes....tanks not debuffing or taunting...healers not healing. I main a DK nord tank and I regularly use group finder for the specific purpose of adding more tanks to the que. But the things you see in GF is...kind boggling....more so when you've got 2 810 dps and it takes ages to kill trash mobs...in base game dungeons....i could help but 90% of them aren't on mic to take advice and ignore chat altogether. A way to see who's doing what to kick them would be helpful.

More so in DLC vet runs. I've gotten all of my skins in PuGs but knowing if someone isn't pulling thier weight would help speed things up.

LiquidPony wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

muh wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Well, muh, you don't seem to get the privacy concerns, so the rest of your blather is useless. And your "fairly certain" is certainly NOT something to give people confidence.

Unfortunately you don't help to enlighten me either, all I get from you is deflection. Instead of answering or explaining how this is intruding anyones privacy you go over to... I don't even know what you tried to accomplish here. It seems like you didn't even bother to read anything but the last section, though.

All I get from you is that you just don't understand how it works at all. This isn't automatically uploaded by Zenimax, this isn't uploaded real time. This isn't automatically uploaded at all. This does not include anything but abilities you used or you've been hit with and your character name if you don't set it to annonymous.

The way you talk about it doesn't seem like you're afraid that someone can bash your dps with it, but you're in fear for your life. Like why?

I'm also not affiliated with them, except that I am one of their Patreon supporter. And apparently getting personally attacked by you. You're building a great case for yourself.

Hey Muh,

If you don’t think that someone secretly recording my playing performance and then posting it (again without my knowledge or consent) to a third party website to which I have no access ISN’T a gross violation of my privacy and morally repugnant, I humbly suggest you are in denial.

Being able to record MY metrics for MY use with MY consent is a great idea.

Having a dps gestapo looking over your shoulder isn’t.

How is someone else recording your performance, though?

If you don't enable logging, your performance isn't being recorded. If you don't upload the logs to esologs.com, your performance isn't being posted anywhere without your consent.

Again, and again, and again, most of the "concerns" being filed here seem to stem from a gross misunderstanding of what the Encounter Log tool does.

It also doesn't help that so many of the "invasive" crowd have resorted to hilariously ridiculous hyperbole, e.g., "gross violation of my privacy" and "morally repugnant" LOL!

That's incorrect.

There is no opt-out/veto.

If any player is logging the encounter and uploads it, your combat data will be recorded and uploaded for that player to share it with whoever they like.

The only choice you get to make is to be anonymous or have your character id shown on that log. Either way, you don't get a choice about having your performance recorded for upload...and I'll stress that its assumed that you consent to have your character id attached to that log. Anonymity is not the current default,