Absolutely fair.
Qt3??
QT3. You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
And we wouldn’t have it any other way!
My paraphrasing of Tim’s explanation:
“Yeah we just copied data from a specific file in Steam and then stored it in an encrypted format because we were in a hurry, we only wanted the Steam friend info! Our bad!”
Does Tim Sweeney think we’re stupid? He copied the whole file because it had interesting data in it and he didn’t want to lose access if the format was changed or it moved. He encrypted it to make it less likely that this was noticed.
What kind of information is Steam tracking on me that is so valiable or scary?
Your phone/Google/Facebook are tracking far more than that. Maybe you avoid those, but this still seems pretty minor. Literally everything is tracking you nowadays.
And therefore it’s fine? Not providing an opt-out is fine? Lying about it is fine?
I can’t hear you over the sound of my Wi-fi refrigerator.
Having access to the contents of someone’s game library is clearly very valuable to someone in the business of selling games. It’s not scary in this instance, but scanning the config files of a competitor without making it very obvious to the machine owner what you are doing is pretty slimy.
Up to you of course, I just find it difficult to take this argument seriously when most people use products that are cheap or free because they are collecting your data. Maybe you don’t use a smartphone, use Duck Duck Go, and don’t register for your local grocery store’s club card, but I would bet 99% of the people complaining about Epic/Steam do. Seems hypocritical to me.
“Literally” might have been a bad word choice there.
This is a fascinating argument, it “literally” boils down to everyone is doing it so it’s fine.
No, it boils down to you are a fool if you don’t think its happening. Especially when you are ok with everyone else doing it. “I am fine with Google knowing everywhere I have been for the last year, but Epic knowing what games I buy is a bridge too far!” Tough to take that seriously.
It’s whataboutism at its finest. Other things are bad so this bad thing is fine.
Also. rationalizing on your part. You like Google so buy into their tracking. You don’t like Epic, so this is horrible.
Yeah, but I’m not fine with anyone collecting info on me is my point and not sure how knowing people are tracking us makes me a fool.
I go pretty far out of my way to avoid it, I use TOR and a VPN, don’t use google for anything, don’t have a twitter account or facebook. These are all intentional acts on my part to avoid this problem.
Valve having information from Steam, information I add to and put there is fine. Why would that not be fine? A second program ripping that information away without asking, not fine. It has nothing to do with Epic so much as they’re pulling information that was not provided to them from another program, their competition. I wouldn’t like it if any other store did it either. This is not about Epic vs Steam.
But again, in the world of Social Media and mobile, programs ask for this all the time. I usually say… no.
Yes, that’s pretty much exactly it. Are they providing a service that’s worth the value of the data they’re collecting? I use Google Maps knowing it is collecting location and routing data on me because it is worth it to me to never have to look at a normal GPS again. That doesn’t mean I think everyone should get to have all of my information whenever they want.
Your argument is spurious. Installing a program that, without disclosure, reads and sends the personal data of other programs is by definition malware. Would you like it if the Epic installer stored your search information? Your electronic banking information? This is not just a matter of the software tracking you. It is tracking your other software without permission. Not only will this get slapped because it conflicts with GDPR but it just further fuels the fears that due to who owns the Epic store that the data they collect may not be safe.
It is saying something that there is less of a chance of downloading malware by shopping on Pirate Bay than the Epic store.
Yeah, you’re not being overly dramatic or anything.