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Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
http://www.x404.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21366		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  pcernie [ Tue Feb 18, 2014 1:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/va ... ts-1225731
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
Quote:
A user on Reddit recently posted a claim that Valve's anti-cheating service was rummaging through users' browser history and sending its findings back to Valve.
But the company's co-founder Gabe Newell has now come out to deny the accusations in the way he knows best – also via Reddit.
"Do we send your browsing history to Valve? No," said Newell. "Do we care what porn sites you visit? Oh, dear god, no. My brain just melted.
"Is Valve using its market success to go evil? I don't think so, but you have to make the call if we are trustworthy. We try really hard to earn and keep your trust."

They need to maintain trust with their users or else this could become a Ratner moment.
Author:  jonlumb [ Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
It's got almost nothing in common with what Ratner did, and I seriously doubt it would have an effect as devastating. Far more likely to be some scrote who wants to cheat and can no longer get away with it spreading false rumours to try and get the product pulled.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
How many people will stick with Valve if they know it is reporting back on your porn habits? That was the Ratner moment I was thinking of. While Ratner explaining that its products were crap is one thing, I was equating the fact that if it did spy on your porn habits it could have been as damaging to Valve as the Ratner comment.

While I have no problem with Valve checking that you have not modified the game or to ensure that it is genuine licensed copy I would not like them scanning my drives at all. Some app stores might scan your applications folder to see what is installed they should also have their own records of what you have purchased in case you want to download it to a new machine etc. That is very different to scanning your browser history.
Author:  jonbwfc [ Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
Amnesia10 wrote:
How many people will stick with Valve if they know it is reporting back on your porn habits?

How many of the people complaining about this have considered how many other companies are probably already probably gathering/reporting back on their web browsing habits anyway? E.G. their ISP, Google, Mozilla, the government...

Valve have, as far as I can see, no great incentive to do so. The information as to which websites I might look at other than ones directly relating to cheating/circumventing their DRM is of no commercial use to them. They're interested in selling games and they make pots of money doing it already. Why waste time, money and effort gathering a lot of data they're not actually going to do anything with?
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Valve: We're not spying on your porn habits
It is not really going to help them, but I am quite frankly surprised at how many apps and sites have tracking cookies. One app bartender is for cleaning up the menu bar and yet that has a tracking cookie. Every minute my machine deletes it.
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