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Microsoft clarifies that game activity is shared with third parties in new ToS
- matheweis 4y agoAaaand now we know why they want Microsoft accounts for Minecraft so badly ...
- OldTimeCoffee 4y agoI'm pretty sure that is about banning bad actors across the whole ecosystem. You know, because Minecraft is a game targeted at kids. And maybe you don't someone spouting racist/sexist garbage at them all day.
- robonerd 4y agoAuthoritarians always cite "bad actors" as their pretext for seizing more power.
- eganist 4y ago> Authoritarians This is Microsoft, and in a competitive landscape, no less. Not sure if this maps.
- robonerd 4y agoIf you think a corporation like Microsoft isn't attracted to power, you're nuts.
- Spivak 4y agoMicrosoft is definitely laughing maniacally over their power to ban a 12 year old from a video game. Moderation is hard work, expensive, and doesn’t scale. And Minecraft doesn’t have even a theoretical sinister benefit of being able to sway public opinion with it. It’s just a cost center to keep the ecosystem non-toxic.
- robonerd 4y ago> Moderation is hard work, expensive, and doesn’t scale. And yet they are seeking the power to ban people from playing on their own private servers. It's a blatant power grab, but I guess it not real authoritarianism unless they're laughing like a cartoon villain when they do it, right? Give me a break. All corporations are power hungry by nature; and the largest and most powerful of them have demonstrated this nature time and time again to become the way they are today.
- matheweis 4y agoThen they should outsource the moderation to the server owners and let them mod their own servers however they like.
- iasay 4y agoThe problem is the ecosystem owners seem to be evolving into the main bad actors. Well two of them at least.
- car_analogy 4y agoOr maybe I don't want my kid's chat and gameplay analyzed and sold by Microsoft, to be used against them in the future.
- matheweis 4y agoNope. I don’t want Microsoft to police what sort of speech my kids are and aren’t allowed to have, nor do I want them to get to decide what the consequences for breaking the rules are. What I’d like to be able to do is set up a server and let our kids and their friends play on it, without anyone else. That would protect the kids just fine. This doesn’t take a globally unique Microsoft account, it takes a player guid. I’m pretty sure the capability is all there, too, but they just decided to lock it behind their ecosystem.
- justsomeguy123 4y ago> You know, because Minecraft is a game targeted at kids. A survival game where you are utterly alone fighting zombies and all kinds of monsters that come at night while you have no weapons or shelter. Yeap... kids stuff.
- sumthinprofound 4y ago> ESTIMATED READING TIME: 55 Minutes; 14268 words
- rvz 4y agoUnsurprising. You will own nothing, everything you do is surveilled on which means zero privacy, pay that monthly subscription fee (which can change at any time) for all your games and be very happy. Hopefully you do not get banned or else all your digital games gone.
- robonerd 4y ago> You will own nothing, everything you do is surveilled on which means zero privacy, pay that monthly subscription fee (which can change at any time) With minecraft it's worse than that; a game I 'bought' years ago from another company, since acquired, can now be taken from me by Microsoft. If they were merely to deny me updates made after my purchase, that would be understandable, but they've gone further than that. To play the game as it existed when I purchased it, I need Microsoft's continued approval in the present and into the future. Now I pirate a game I once bought, because I refuse to sign up to those new terms and due to that refusal, cannot play the game even the version of the game I originally bought. Lesson learned: buying games is for chumps. I am now reticent to buy any game from any company; any of them might get bought by microsoft too. When companies do shit like this they aren't just harming the users of that specific software, but the entire industry as a whole.
- MereInterest 4y agoEven further: I bought minecraft in alpha, when the purchase agreement included receiving all future versions of minecraft. Going from "all future versions" to "well only this specific version and also we've migrated your account through multiple different systems so if you could just contact support that would be great" is rather frustrating.
- koluna 4y agoMore folks need to realize that their best bet (if they want to play games) is to buy them through DRM-free services like GOG, and not Xbox Game Pass or whatever flavor of subscription there is. You're right in that once you get banned (for any arbitrary reason), there is no recourse. You can't get your library back. So what can folks do? - Buy MP3s that are DRM free. - Buy physical copies of movies on DVD/BluRay instead of paying for streaming. - Buy games on GOG, or physical copies that do not depend on "launchers". - Buy software that is not subscription-based (Affinity is fantastic if you want to replace Adobe, for example) and you can buy for a one-time fee.
- DavideNL 4y agoYet another service to implement a block for in all the "Windows anti-bloat" apps/scripts... in a desperate attempt to gain a little privacy.
- rkagerer 4y agoyour game play, activities and usage of games and Xbox Services will be tracked and shared with applicable third-parties, including game developers I'd be less concerned if they committed to sharing data about a game's use ONLY with the publisher of said game, via an opt-in mechanism (or at least gave you a global opt-out option). But the ambiguous way this is worded leaves the door open to them sharing whatever they want with whoever they want. No thank you, bugger off.
- koluna 4y agoGetting really tired of the game of cat and mouse with telemetry domains, but alas the vast majority of the population does not understand the risks to their privacy, nor are they educated about the extent of data collection and re-selling that is happening in the industry. It's as if we need to simplify the way we have 18,337,398 page Privacy Policy into something like "We collect and sell your data to the following parties: 1, 2, 3". Bet at least then you'd have some people against the mass telemetrization of every nook and cranny of your devices.
- rkagerer 4y agoI wonder if it might also help if companies were compelled to share specifics. E.g. Imagine just like the "Security" tab in $WEBSITE that lists all your recent logins and originating IP's, there were a "Privacy" tab showing each disclosure. 7/2: We told Facebook you visited our website 7/3: We shared your recent search on "Ukraine" with Cambridge Analytica Even more-so if you could audit your telemetry data blockchain-style as it propagates through the ether... 7/14: Cambridge Analytica shared your Ukraine search history with Russian FSB
- koluna 4y agoFWIW, I just assume that any data in the "cloud" is up for grabs to the highest bidder, with any service, no matter how "privacy-oriented" they are today. Once they get enough data, it becomes too tempting to start monetizing it. Microsoft despite its revenue volumes is not exempt from trying to diversify its revenue streams through selling whatever data they have for ads/whoever wants it. That's a HUGE part of the reason why I refuse to use any "cloud storage" aka OneDrive or whatever they call it these days, or any of the MSFT cloud services in Windows. Bing is the first thing I disable, along with all the MSN bloatware, and it's all done through a DNS block at the top of my network stack. Never connect the OS to the Microsoft account either, because the way the company works - they are not a friend of yours and neither are they going to help you re-gain whatever semblance of privacy you're aiming for.
- robonerd 4y ago> FWIW, I just assume that any data in the "cloud" is up for grabs to the highest bidder, with any service, no matter how "privacy-oriented" they are today. Microsoft intends to turn Minecraft into snitchware that will effect players playing the game entirely on their own computers and private servers, not just those playing on rented servers (aka "the cloud".)
- koluna 4y agoI know this will sound like proposing a bandaid to a bigger problem, but that should be an incentive to drop Minecraft. Stop playing the game and move on to something different.
- willis936 4y agoMinecraft is not like other games. Ten years ago minecraft was a blooming platform for mods. It has been lying dormant ready for another bloom when MS finally decide to enable the tools to allow it. Dark patterns while this future is still possible is a reason for concern.
- 4y ago
- captainmuon 4y agoIt's probably less sinister than it reads. One instance where it really benefits the game to "share data with third parties" is online Age of Empires II (DE). There is a lot of cool content on Twitch and YouTube and there are tournaments, and I think this makes the game more interesting than it would be otherwise. It's only possible because people can spectate ranked online games. Also, there are pages like aoe2insights.com which provide leaderboards, and analyze public ranked games. I think this is probably some catch-all legalese they "have" to write there, and this is a case of the EULA becoming so stupidly nondescript that it allows everything and explains nothing. It would be probably better though if they said in each game "hey, we will share your score and recordings of ranked games with other players, if you don't want that click here".
- worik 4y agoLet the user now about "...where it really benefits the game" and let them opt in
- captainmuon 4y agoOpt in never works though... tragedy of the commons. I would have probably not opted in, even though I enjoy the streams and the analytics sites. I forgot to opt out, because it really doesn't matter, and actually promptly one of my games was casted once, which was upsetting for a second, but ultimately pretty funny. Why would anybody opt-in to analytics of a website they are visiting - even if it's strictly first-party, not sharing it with advertizers or Google, just for improving the site? You are gonna click "no". Same with application analytics - if you know as a developer which functions people use how frequently, and where the app crashes, everyone benefits. The potential dangers are theoretical at best, and you can always opt out. But if it is opt-in, you get completely skewed results. Controversial opinion, but I think opt-out should be the default in 90% of the cases, and to prevent the undesired outcome (e.g. people making ad profiles) you should not require out-in, but just ban the undesired outcome.
- koluna 4y agoThat's part of the problem - opt-in never works because it's an inherently an anti-consumer practice. The industry got so used to vacuuming up as much data as possible that the moment you give customers the option, they do not want to partake. You know it's a bad thing when you say "If I ask users for consent, nobody will agree to this." I as a customer want full control of my data and if you, the website owner, try to force me into giving data that I did not consent to (invasive site analytics, for example, that track my page behavior), I will go out of my way to block that through extensions and by just banning things at the DNS level.
- cronix 4y agoWould be nice if XBox was inserted into the title.... "...that xbox game activity..."
- asxd 4y agoThe wording does seem open-ended, but note this phrase > If you choose to link your Microsoft Xbox Services account with your account on a non-Microsoft service or sign in to your Xbox Services account to access a non-Microsoft Service... I work on a service that tracks game activity for users, but we require them to go through the OAuth process and explicitly give us permission to do so.
- PenguinCoder 4y ago> If you choose Yeah and how much is it really a choice? Either you do this or you don't have access to <games or features of games> , but it's still "your choice". Shady as fuck and clearly not a 'choice'. Weasel words.
- throwaway290 4y agoYeah it seems like it's not that sinister of a clause. At least at first glance it reads as if nothing gets shared if you stick just to the game and not explicitly involve third-party services.
- epakai 4y agoIf you signed into your microsoft account on windows or xbox game bar or whatever they start tracking this sort of thing without asking. I had about a years history of gaming attached to my profile without even knowing it was enabled because I was trying to get a familiarize myself with parental controls for my nephew's xbox purchase. I don't own any microsoft store games. Everything I had played came through steam or GOG, but was still tracked.
- akagusu 4y agoThey clearly are using their ToS to circumvent privacy protections and probably others are doing the same thing. No matter how many laws we have to protect our privacy against exploitation, companies will start using their ToS to avoid legal consequences. We are reaching a point where we should avoid certain kinds of products and services if we care about privacy.