Prevent Invites from Geo-Location Area

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

I would like to be able to prevent people who live in the same state as me from sending me invites - obviously, this would need to be something that could be undone & even redone again, much like the block list.

However, unlike the block list, it should not prevent me from sending them invites, with the reason being, then it will never leak anyone's location to me or others, like how you can discover that someone has blocked you by attempting to send them an invite & getting an error message stating that they have blocked you.

I'd even maybe say that I don't want to receive invites from people in my country, but I'd rather just block people from my own state from adding me as I'm not cynical enough about my entire country just yet... the error message when they attempt to add should be the same error message you get when someone has blocked your profile.

I should emphasize that this would just be for blocking invites (& MAYBE comments on one's screenshots, profile & such) & not for blocking chats & such. I do have some pre-existing friends from my own state but currently there is no one from my state who should be adding me, & I don't really trust people in my own state - I'm far more willing to trust people in other states & halfway around the world than my own neighbors at the moment.

(I'm also fully aware that this wouldn't block EVERY person in my state as, even though geographical location IS required to make purchases... people sometimes manage to get away with lying & / or just don't make purchases. ...I don't think such a feature should be expected to be 100%, the same way that VAC doesn't stop 100% of cheaters.)


Oh, it's probably not going to happen but... there's the idea for you guys. Feel free to discuss it.

[Gwarsbane]

It might work... for about an hour, then the scammers just use vpns to hide their locations and everyone looks like they are from the same country/state you are in if you are advertising your location, or they are from the US, or where ever...

So its rather pointless.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Gwarsbane lähetti viestin:

It might work... for about an hour, then the scammers just use vpns to hide their locations and everyone looks like they are from the same country/state you are in if you are advertising your location, or they are from the US, or where ever...

So its rather pointless.

Except, if you read the entire post [(or even just the first line after the title)], you'd see that there's other reasons to want to do this other than to block scammers, such as my own reasons for it that I presented.

I'm actually less likely to trust someone who is from my own state / country, than someone who is from another country, so if scammers were trying to appear to be from my own geo-location, they'd actually trigger the block, as I'd actually add my own geo-location to the geo-block list.

Not that I have any issue weeding out scammers & kicking them to the curb but what you propose would actually mean that, with how I want to use it, the scammers would actually be less likely to contact me. ...along with the real people (who probably aren't scammers) who I'd actually like to avoid having contact with.

Which, said real people (who probably aren't scammers) are the real reason that I'd, personally, prefer to have such a feature.

[Nx Machina]

So the premises is you want to block others sending invites to you but NOT you sending invites to them. So basically a one way street where you can pester others with invites.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

So the premises is you want to block others sending invites to you but NOT you sending invites to them. So basically a one way street where you can pester others with invites.

No, not at all. The concept that you are suggesting is as simple as what you just wrote & also not what I am suggesting.

I wouldn't be singling out specific geo-locations if that was the case.

If I can't send invites to people who are within geo-locations that I've added to my own geo-block list, then that would immediately open the door for me to be able to use the geo-location blocking feature to brute-force attempts (even at only 1 invite to the person per day (immediately canceled after sending it) ) in order to figure out their geo-location & essentially get Steam to leak user-information which may have been intentionally kept private by the individual.

All someone would have to do is block only ONE geo-location & rotate which geo-location they have blocked, once per day, before sending an invite to someone, to eventually receive a message saying, "you are unable to send this user an invite because you have blocked them", & thus learn their geo-location (even though they might not have posted it on their profile).

Hence, why I said it shouldn't affect my ability to send them invites (unless they blocked or geo-blocked me), as it would result in the problem of user info being able to be leaked via the feature.



Also, the "1 way pestering" concept you suggest already exists in Steam anyways. You can block a user to prevent them from commenting on your profile & content uploads yet if they have not blocked you then you can still comment on their profile & content uploads, despite the fact that you blocked them.

[Nx Machina]

Vpn's, tor brower etc can circimvent what you require.

All scammers are real people and how can you know someone is one as we all use online personas which give no indication of our intention.

If you want to hide use a vpn.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

...
All scammers are real people and how can you know someone is one as we all use online personas which give no indication of our intention.
...

If you'll run a quick "CTRL + F" search on this topic's first page for the term "scam", you will find that there is exactly ZERO mentions of scams or scammers in the original post & the subject wasn't even brought up until user:"Gwarsbane", who seemingly made the assumption that this is, according to him, about preventing scammers, despite the fact that there are ZERO references to scams or scammers in the OP.

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

Vpn's, tor brower etc can circimvent what you require.

All scammers are real people and how can you know someone is one as we all use online personas which give no indication of our intention.

If you want to hide use a vpn.

You are suggesting that I should violate the Steam terms of service:

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

Valve lähetti viestin:

3. BILLING, PAYMENT AND OTHER SUBSCRIPTIONS
...
A. Payment Authorization
...
You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, Valve may terminate your access to your Account.
...

. . . in order to complete an action, which doesn't even achieve the intended goal of avoiding contact, or at least decreasing the liklihood of contact, with people from a region of the world (my own state) that I don't want to be having any contact with.

I could just reject everyone outright & never send any requests, but it's really just people from my own state that I don't want to have contact with right now.

[Nx Machina]

Not liking replies does not invaldate them.

You mentioned scammers in your reply to me then edited your post #4 to remove it otherwise I would not have mentioned it, but nice attempt at trying to cover your tracks

Using a vpn does not violate the SSA unless you are using one to region hop for cheaper games and would violate the SSA. It reads fully:

a) You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography.

b) or for any other purpose. If you do this, Valve may terminate your access to your Account.

Using a vpn for privacy reasons does not violate the SSA as Valve have not defined "for any other purpose, they only define region hopping.

Are you simply looking for affirmation of problem YOU believe requires fixing or do you not like other opinions on a discussion forum as I see no value in the suggestion as it is one you can fix yourself.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

...
You mentioned scammers in your reply to me then edit your post to remove it ...

You don't know what was or wasn't adjusted in a reply (& for the record, you are outright lying. I fixed an error in the Valve quote & the punctuation - that is the ONLY things that were changed).

Try re-reading the OP / original post - you'll notice at the bottom of my topic OP... it does not say it has been edited because I made ZERO grammatical errors in the OP that I know of.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

The first response to you, currently post #4, had a missing ")" that I corrected - that is ALL.
but...

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

nice attempt at trying to cover your tracks

Anyways...

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

...
Are you simply looking for affirmation of problem YOU believe requires fixing or do you not like other opinions on a discussion forum as I see no value in the suggestion as it is one you can fix yourself.

It is not one that someone can simply "fix themselves" without casting a much broader scope than is necessary & or acting overly paranoid (like I've seen certain other users on the forums doing, who probably were concerned about some of the people in THEIR areas too).

Steam already isn't broadcasting your location to other users unless you include it on your profile (which you could just lie about) so using a VPN (which could get your account terminated) isn't going to do anything in regards to the intended goal of avoiding contact with people in a region that you don't want to be contacted by

You see no value in the suggestion as you're skipping over & ignoring portions of the posts & / or just don't understand what you're reading.

[Nx Machina]

Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at lähetti viestin:

Nx Machina lähetti viestin:

...
You mentioned scammers in your reply to me then edit your post to remove it ...

You don't know what was or wasn't adjusted in a reply (& for the record, you are outright lying. I fixed an error in the Valve quote & the punctuation - that is the ONLY things that were changed).

Try re-reading the OP / original post - you'll notice at the bottom of my topic OP... it does not say it has been edited because I made ZERO grammatical errors in the OP that I know of.


:true:

Oh! you definitely mentioned scammers hence my reply in post #5, also I am referring to post #4 the one you edited after I replied and not the OP post,

[Walach]

This is a serious request but I would have liked an option to disable all social features, invites, the whole thing. Mostly as a parental thingy but I might just be an idiot and not finding it myself. :P

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Walach lähetti viestin:

This is a serious request but I would have liked an option to disable all social features, invites, the whole thing. Mostly as a parental thingy but I might just be an idiot and not finding it myself. :P

You can currently do that by turning on Steam Family View.

It may seem inadequate with a 4 digit pin, but iirc, if they try guessing & guess wrong too many times, the whole account just gets locked & then the parent has to sign into e-mail to unlock it (& will know what the kid did).

[Walach]

Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at lähetti viestin:

Walach lähetti viestin:

This is a serious request but I would have liked an option to disable all social features, invites, the whole thing. Mostly as a parental thingy but I might just be an idiot and not finding it myself. :P

You can currently do that by turning on Steam Family View.

It may seem inadequate with a 4 digit pin, but iirc, if they try guessing & guess wrong too many times, the whole account just gets locked & then the parent has to sign into e-mail to unlock it (& will know what the kid did).


:seewhatyoudid:

Wow, I was an idiot, thank you! Not for reminding me but the other part, the none idiot part! ;P
I would recommend huge red buttons for everything but I believe everyone here would hate me if those things existed.

[Radene]

With how inaccurate this geo-locations are, I don't think this is a good idea.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Radene lähetti viestin:

With how inaccurate this geo-locations are, I don't think this is a good idea.

ZIP code / area code & tax information when making purchases.