Steam replay - how to revoke/stop data profiling through steam/valve?

[Psykrom]

Hi,

I was a little baffled to find in depth profiling on my year-round play behavior today.
Does anyone know if there is a way to unsubscribe from valve (and please no jokes of deleting my account), so they stop collecting and analyzing my data in a personality structogram?

I find it concerning and perceive it as a potential threat/risk to my privacy, even if I do not share the data with anyone, I do not recall giving consent to anyone in regards of collecting and analyzing my data for commercial profiling.

I can guess that they pushed this somehow into the terms of use via an update, still would be nice to know which means we have as users to secure our personal data.

If anyone can provide useful information, I would be grateful.

Have a nice day!

[Elucidator]

People have advised me to stop using Steam to achieve this, or go offline mode where possible.
(that is not a joke).

So far I know, there is no Opt-Out button.


Edit:
Just noting:
They are for some reason tracking this stuff. I suspect predatory reasons. They seem to want you to share those stats and try to get you to look at other people's stats through twitter for example. I suspect the goal here is to see that you have played less games or bought less games for example, inciting you to conform compared to the masses, so that you'd buy and play games more. The stat page is also there to advertise specific games.

And even in private mode, the stats of this page are displayed in a way to achieve the same results. You will notice you play less than your max ever, so you see a large black bar of lackingness. You can compare it to gradeschool scores, and it won't make you feel very proud nor happy about these things.
And so, you will feel "I'll do better next year." which means of course, more income.
Farmville on facebook, a crap game has already proven this sort of thing works wonders for profit.

I talked about it in the other thread. People didn't like my comment.
See twitter as well: https://twitter.com/hashtag/SteamReplay?src=hashtag_click&f=live

Anyway, the reason I want to opt out isn't to keep my privacy, its because I am against using this for predatory schemes. As others said, you can keep the page private and will miss out on rewards by not looking at the page. It shouldn't cause too many issues, but if I can't opt out, I can't show I am against these types of dark patterns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern

[eram]

please explain how you playing a game on steam is a threat/risk to your privacy?

you are already willingly and publicly giving away a lot more info on your profile than your end of year stats we cant see unless you share.

look at the amount of info you are leaking.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/psykrom

[**DeiRowtag]

OP should know that everything you ever put on your profile stay forever in their database, even a random person like us can find them from some sites.

[J4MESOX4D]

It's amazing that this information has been sitting on the Steam API for over 15 years but now it's been collated and put under people's noses, suddenly it's a privacy issue

Just goes to show how oblivious people can be. They are probably posting this on devices that are used to actually harvest information for monetary gain.

[Psykrom]

eram lähetti viestin:

please explain how you playing a game on steam is a threat/risk to your privacy?

you are already willingly and publicly giving away a lot more info on your profile than your end of year stats we cant see unless you share.

look at the amount of info you are leaking.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/psykrom

You are right, the less info you share, the better. Using an alias is no excuse.

The problem I see with this steam replay "feature", is that it is >not safe for work< to have your data collected by cooperations and potentially shared with other cooperations/companies, which are able to trace the data back to you and identify you as an individual. Thus they gain inside to your private behavior and routines and join data from other profiles in order to create an ever growing profile of one individual.

Nobody should ever know how many hours we work, have exercise, where and what we eat, or how many hours we spent infront of the computer to play games.
Anyone who wants to keep track of these things should do so in absolute privacy with no risk of data breach on their own.

[eram]

explain how you playing a game for 2mins , 2 hours, 200 or 2k hours is not safe for work?
how about you stop using steam at work?

no one i work with knows what my steam account is, why should they? how could they and im about as public as they get.

[**DeiRowtag]

Psykrom lähetti viestin:

eram lähetti viestin:

please explain how you playing a game on steam is a threat/risk to your privacy?

you are already willingly and publicly giving away a lot more info on your profile than your end of year stats we cant see unless you share.

look at the amount of info you are leaking.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/psykrom

You are right, the less info you share, the better. Using an alias is no excuse.

The problem I see with this steam replay "feature", is that it is >not safe for work< to have your data collected by cooperations and potentially shared with other cooperations/companies, which are able to trace the data back to you and identify you as an individual. Thus they gain inside to your private behavior and routines and join data from other profiles in order to create an ever growing profile of one individual.

Nobody should ever know how many hours we work, have exercise, where and what we eat, or how many hours we spent infront of the computer to play games.
Anyone who wants to keep track of these things should do so in absolute privacy with no risk of data breach on their own.

My replay is all fake, since i used several bots to farm stuff in games so those data have absolutely no value

[Psykrom]

J4MESOX4D lähetti viestin:

It's amazing that this information has been sitting on the Steam API for over 15 years but now it's been collated and put under people's noses, suddenly it's a privacy issue:lunar2019laughingpig:

Just goes to show how oblivious people can be. They are probably posting this on devices that are used to actually harvest information for monetary gain.

If the data is not analyzed and just sitting there, it may be at risk of being stolen/sold and analyzed through someone else. But to profile someone takes effort, may it be run through a program or done by a person. It is an effort which has to be made with intention.

The existence of a gun is not the issue, the problem is who ends up using it for which purpose.

[J4MESOX4D]

Psykrom lähetti viestin:

eram lähetti viestin:

please explain how you playing a game on steam is a threat/risk to your privacy?

you are already willingly and publicly giving away a lot more info on your profile than your end of year stats we cant see unless you share.

look at the amount of info you are leaking.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/psykrom

You are right, the less info you share, the better. Using an alias is no excuse.

The problem I see with this steam replay "feature", is that it is >not safe for work< to have your data collected by cooperations and potentially shared with other cooperations/companies, which are able to trace the data back to you and identify you as an individual. Thus they gain inside to your private behavior and routines and join data from other profiles in order to create an ever growing profile of one individual

Collating and presenting API data which can be publicly accessed at any time is not a privacy issue. Also the information presented in it is only useful to developers and Valve.

Your PC, it's OS, search engines and the websites you use on a daily basis are the ones you should be worried about if this is your stance. Some sites have mandatory cookies and can see what rival sites and trends you view any time you are online. Google sell raw API data around the houses and you are profiled every single day. Yet you seem to be worried about a few hours in a game and peripheral usage...

[J4MESOX4D]

Psykrom lähetti viestin:

J4MESOX4D lähetti viestin:

It's amazing that this information has been sitting on the Steam API for over 15 years but now it's been collated and put under people's noses, suddenly it's a privacy issue

Just goes to show how oblivious people can be. They are probably posting this on devices that are used to actually harvest information for monetary gain.

If the data is not analyzed and just sitting there, it may be at risk of being stolen/sold and analyzed through someone else. But to profile someone takes effort, may it be run through a program or done by a person. It is an effort which has to be made with intention.

The existence of a gun is not the issue, the problem is who ends up using it for which purpose.

Who the hell is going to steal public API data? The information is only useful to Valve and developers for algorithmic purposes for the store.

[Psykrom]

eram lähetti viestin:

explain how you playing a game for 2mins , 2 hours, 200 or 2k hours is not safe for work?
how about you stop using steam at work?

no one i work with knows what my steam account is, why should they? how could they and im about as public as they get.

The risk is not me sharing the account or being accused of playing during working hours, but my information being analyzed and handed over through steam to other companies they are working with. It is an endless chain of the data moving from one hand to another.

This may or may not create problems which are related to my working environment.

[J4MESOX4D]

Psykrom lähetti viestin:

eram lähetti viestin:

explain how you playing a game for 2mins , 2 hours, 200 or 2k hours is not safe for work?
how about you stop using steam at work?

no one i work with knows what my steam account is, why should they? how could they and im about as public as they get.

The risk is not me sharing the account or being accused of playing during working hours, but my information being analyzed and handed over through steam to other companies they are working with. It is an endless chain of the data moving from one hand to another.

This may or may not create problems which are related to my working environment.

Your work PC already does far worse if it's connected to the internet. Also the picture of your PC you have on your profile is interesting - the GPU alone likely harvests way more data in a day than Valve do in a decade.

You're 20 years too late if you're only just worrying about this now. Welcome to the internet as they say..

[( ( < < <🤖> > > ) )]

data can tell you a lot of things about peoples spending and wealth...

why chase low volume game users when you can chase high volume game users....

[eram]

Psykrom lähetti viestin:

eram lähetti viestin:

explain how you playing a game for 2mins , 2 hours, 200 or 2k hours is not safe for work?
how about you stop using steam at work?

no one i work with knows what my steam account is, why should they? how could they and im about as public as they get.

The risk is not me sharing the account or being accused of playing during working hours, but my information being analyzed and handed over through steam to other companies they are working with. It is an endless chain of the data moving from one hand to another.

This may or may not create problems which are related to my working environment.

so stop playing steam games at work.

[Psykrom]

When someone practices malpractice, it should not endorse others to follow suit.
Of course there is a lot more data being collected elsewhere, which is more sensible regarding us as individuals.

The problem I see is it becoming the status quo for users to go along with anything and not question what is happening right under their nose.

If something is done in secret without my knowledge, I am either ignorant or simply not aware, But in this case it is put right under my nose. I can voice my protest then, no?