Question about how /me was handled (Datamining?)

[Polymorph]

Two different valve employees said that they knew /me wasn't used much, and I was just wondering how they knew that. I asked this question in the comments of another post about /me, but it got forgotten about in all the arguining. So I'm just wondering if steam does datamining on our instant messages (either how many times the /me function was used if it was server side, which would be weird... or just deep datamining where they're actually inspecting the content of our chat itself.). Also, HenryG said he'd get back to us with some data about this, so I'd like to just have a post here so I don't miss it when he posts it.

[Tito Shivan]

Had you properly read Valve's Privacy policy:
http://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/

Chat Forums, Etc.

Valve's products or services may provide chat, forums, bulletin boards, or instant messaging tools to users. Any information that is disclosed in chat, forums or bulletin boards should be considered public information, and users who message one another may not know each other personally. Valve has no obligation to keep private personally identifiable information that a user makes available to other users or the public using these functions. Users should exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information in public forums. Users should also be aware that game play information disclosed during multiplayer game play (e.g. player name and current player statistics) is public information and may be displayed to other users.

Chat & forums have always been considered public. which means one should expect no privacity or protection about what's been written there. I wouldn't be surprised if they datamined chats as they do with the rest of data we generate while on Steam.

[Polymorph]

I have read it, but I was a little mislead by the fact that it lists chat, forums, bulletin boards, or instant messaging tools, but then only says that infomation in chat, forums or bulletin boards is public. I was under the impression that infomation in instant messaging was therefore not strictly public, and honestly, I believe it's counterintutive to find that instant messaging chats are public. I don't feel quite as comfortable using steam chat anymore, and I'm going to be telling my friends the same.

[ChrisW]

It is considered public so nobody can decide to sue Valve over what goes around on the chat system. In other words, you tell one of your friends your real name and address and that person starts telling everyone else. You can't sue Valve to force other people not to give out any information you provided yourself. In other words, don't give out your personal information over the chat system and if you do, don't blame Valve.