Extended Privacy Features and Friend Groups

[.boi]

Hey All. Don't you agree that Steam could use some more detailed privacy settings? It seems like most of the options given to you, are almost an all or nothing situation. Setting your account or game details to "Public", "Friends" and "Private" for example. I don't think all of you are privacy or security advocates but this could benefit a lot of people. If you know how Windows Active Directory or security groups work in IT, you may see where this is going. For example:

--A bit of details, lets say you have a public profile and game details set to 'Friends only'.--
You meet someone online, playing a game of CSGO or Killing floor 2 and you are killing it. You queue up and play a few games together and add each other as friends on Steam to play later.

Once you add them as a friend, they can see your entire game library and inventory. This is already a big problem, it gives 'scammers', 'social engineers' or 'hackers' whatever you want to call them; a peek inside your accounts worth. Which can potentially make you a target for your steam account. This will be especially useful for public figures, streamers; or anyone that has a large friends list, game library, or valuable inventory.

I think Steam should add a friend "Groups" feature, in which you can adjust privacy settings to each group of friends you create. This allows you to essentially create, a "Best friends" group in which anyone in that group can see all of your game details, inventory etc. While also allowing you to add anyone you meet online to a separate group, which has more but still limited access to your account details such as showing only specific games, inventory, etc.

A feature such as this wouldn't strictly be a security or privacy feature either. What if you have a group of online friends you only play DND with in Tabletop simulator? Well just create a "Group" for them. Effectively shrinking a behemoth of a friends list you may, or may not have into something a little easier to read and sort out. Why not add a "Invite all" feature to said groups, effectively allowing you to invite the entire group into your game lobby at once.

I really think Steam could use some sort of extended privacy and friends list settings. Both increasing your anonymity online and making large friends lists manageable. Almost every social media platform has a feature similar to this, *Cough* Facebo.. Redd... If you haven't seen those, go take a look at how many more options they provide compared to Steam's rudimentary, show all, medium or none, and see what I mean for yourself.

Not all of you may find this relevant but I'm sure some of you do. I do have one personal experience in a case where someone I played games with previously and added as a friend; attempted to get access my Steam account with the use of social engineering. I caught on to that quickly but not everyone does. In the worse case all of the sudden your account isn't 'yours' anymore. Let me know your thoughts on this, or if you have any other suggestions you would like to add on.

[Mr. Smiles]

This comes up often here, usually regarding adult games and friends judging you, so it is good to see a fresh take on it.

Unfortunately, the current answer is that improved privacy is suggested quite often, and valve hasn't implemented it as of yet. This means that it is either in development, or they don't care to do it.

We really have no way of knowing, despite it being such a requested feature.

[kitt]

another topic about "privacy".. well better not let people do polls I guess because they could be spammed..

if you want privacy, stay offline and don't use stuff which is meant to be for people connecting and sharing..

[[N]ebsun]

Originally posted by kitt:

if you want privacy, stay offline and don't use stuff which is meant to be for people connecting and sharing..

Being online has nothing to do with sharing your life... for the majority of the time the internet has been around, the people using it have been completely anonymous.. only recently, with the development of social platforms, has personal information become more shared. Steam is primarily a gaming platform, not a social platform - those social features are secondary, but it would be good to have some more control over it.

Even though you are online, are there not many many aspects of your personal private life that you do not share at all ? in a similar way, we want control over the aspects of our profiles that we can choose to share or not.

All that is being requested is more control than full private, full friends public or full public.