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.

No, it doesn't. I have yet to give my ID to anyone other than the government for things like a passport. I also run my own business in the UK and have never once been interested in a customer's real identity. As long as they pay me, I don't care who they are, and I certainly do not ask for nor am I required to ask for ID. So what you said is demonstrably wrong. The fact that you have two agrees is worrying and shows how people take information at face value, especially if it confirms their own preconceived biases.

JustLovely wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

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.

You didn't read the EULA very closely apparently. Or you skipped over the part where they outline that they do collect user data and make it available to third parties at their discretion. That means ZOS is collecting and almost certainly trading/selling our user information to third parties. It's right there in the EULA.

Of course they make data available to other parties. How else do you think your data travels back and forth between you and the game servers, account servers, payment servers, etc. without having a direct line from your gaming device straight to the game servers.

What do you think happens when your ESO account, Twitch account, PSN account, etc.. are linked? Twitch drops don't just magically appear in your ESO account. Purchases from Steam/PSN/XBox don't just magically know who to bill and from which account.

But it does NOT mean ZOS is "almost certainly trading/selling our user information to third parties." Sharing and exchanging data as needed perhaps, but trading/selling is a paranoid assumption.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

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.

They don't need to take your details from your social media pages, to scan your machine hardware to make an identifiable hash, combine that data with your in-game chats, and then bundle that with your personal name, address, payment details, allowing for Microsoft, foreign governments/"other jurisdictions", scammers, hackers, and other corporations to all have access to that data, all just to make a transaction and report it for tax purposes.
All they need is the name, address, payment details. That's literally it.

Also, they're not just combining your data with what you say on the forums, the plain texts specifies in-game chats, and they even say they'll get more information from your social media accounts that are publicly accessible, why are they stalking our social media pages and giving that information to their affiliates??
It's not for processing a transaction for store crowns or DLC.

"read out of context", they're not going to write in plain English exactly what they're doing, even though they could show examples of the data they collect, how it's processed, where it's processed, what security measures are in place for all users, not just users in the EU, etc.. Instead, they purposefully obfuscate and place context later in the privacy policy, that retroactively applies to the start of the privacy policy. If it was written in plain English, it would be a PR nightmare for them. This way they don't get as much backlash because not as many people can understand it the way it's written/it takes more effort, while also allowing them to do whatever they and their affiliates want to do with it.

Why do you think they say in section 11. International Transfers of Data, at the very last sentence of paragraph 1, "We will take steps to ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection in the jurisdictions in which we process it", while in the very next paragraph, explaining how users in the European Economic Area and United Kingdom will have actual safeguards to protect their personal information when they "transfer to the United States or other jurisdictions that do not provide equivalent levels of data protection"? These two paragraphs are literally saying users in EU will have their personal data protected, while everyone else in the US or other jurisdictions will not.

Why not extend the same protections provided for the personal data of EU users, for the personal data of all the users in other jurisdictions? I think we all know the answer to that.

LalMirchi wrote: »

Forcibly gaining user acceptance of terms and conditions is very widespread, it's quite impossible to function online without agreeing to these rather wide ranging contracts. Unfortunately this game is no exception but I think that they as other companies have to have the legal boilerplate agreed to by users as a legal hail mary.

In many cases this boilerplate does not stand the legal heat in an actual court case.

Online multiplayer games like Elden Ring do not steal my personal information and share it with their affiliates, while allowing the affiliates to process our personal information for their own purposes.


This level of data collection rivals that of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or X. At least those social media platforms offer me a service for "free" in exchange for all my personal data.

WE PURCHASED ESO, and now they're trying to say we have to give up our right to privacy, our right to our data, to continue playing the game. That is unacceptable!

DenverRalphy wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

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.

You didn't read the EULA very closely apparently. Or you skipped over the part where they outline that they do collect user data and make it available to third parties at their discretion. That means ZOS is collecting and almost certainly trading/selling our user information to third parties. It's right there in the EULA.

Of course they make data available to other parties. How else do you think your data travels back and forth between you and the game servers, account servers, payment servers, etc. without having a direct line from your gaming device straight to the game servers.

What do you think happens when your ESO account, Twitch account, PSN account, etc.. are linked? Twitch drops don't just magically appear in your ESO account. Purchases from Steam/PSN/XBox don't just magically know who to bill and from which account.

But it does NOT mean ZOS is "almost certainly trading/selling our user information to third parties." Sharing and exchanging data as needed perhaps, but trading/selling is a paranoid assumption.

Any company that puts out a EULA that says that agreeing to the EULA gives the company the option to sell/trade your user information is almost certainly doing exactly that. Surely you aren't suggesting that ZOS doesn't have a profit driven agenda?

You're calling me paranoid, but I'd call you naive.

Most people who don't understand data mining and how pervasive it is or how profitable it is think everything is fine. Meanwhile there are supercomputers and massive data bases compiling every little tidbit of information on everyone and compiling it in one location to be packaged and sold to whoever wants it. They're not supposed to have your real name and information with the package, but it almost always has the person's real name and info in it.

The only way to have any kind of privacy in the information age is to limit what information you share. AI is able to create these packages of information at compile them at light speed. That's why there are professionals out there that people and companies hire to "clean up their records". Sometimes the info isn't accurate in a very harmful way. Ask one of these professionals what they think about EULA's like the one we just had to agree to.