Hiding your activity from friends

[Warp]

Perhaps one of the most-requested changes to Steam is the option to hide your purchases and activity from everybody, including your friends. Yet there is no option for this.

I understand perfectly why Steam announces your purchases to friends: It increases sales. It entices people to try and buy games their friends play. It's a good business model. I understand this.

However, this is a question of privacy. User choice of privacy should always trump advertisement tactics. Bypassing your customer's privacy in order to increase sales is not acceptable.

And no, the answer to not wanting your friends to see that you are playing eg. some naughty dating sim is not "get better friends" or "unfriend them". I shouldn't have to remove anybody from my friend list simply because I don't want to announce to the world what kind of games I'm playing. If I'm embarrassed to play some pervy game, that ought to be a private matter of mine; Steam should not be in the position of advertising it to all my friends. I don't even understand why this is a question.

Even worse, Steam does not make clear what exactly it's showing to your friends. When you buy or start a game, you have no idea what exactly your friends are seeing. Steam does not inform you in any way of this. It all happens behind the scenes without you knowing.

And even worse, the privacy settings of your profile do not stop Steam from announcing your purchases to your friends, or the fact that you are playing a certain game. Even setting your profile to fully private will still allow people in your friends list to know these things; this has been tested.

This is outright misleading. Nowhere does the Steam privacy page tell you about this.

The thing is, Steam is probably selling less of those certain games because of this very reason. Many people are too embarrassed to buy them because Steam breaches their privacy by annoucing their dirty little secrets to all their friends. You can laugh all you like, but that's not cool.


Edit: Nowhere in the Steam Subscriber Agreement, or the Privacy Policy Agreement, is this mentioned. Not even in passing or indirectly, and most certainly not explicitly. This means that as a Steam user, you never agreed to this, not even inadvertently. Which in turn means that if you agree that this is something that Steam should not be doing, you have a legitimate privacy complaint.

If you agree that this is something that Steam should not be doing, you can write a formal complaint to Valve. Go to http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/ and at the very end of the page there is a "Privacy Feedback" link that will take you to a form that you can use to send a message to Valve.

Please be formal, civil and polite. Make a formal complaint about Steam divulging your personal purchases and other game activities to third-parties in a manner that identifies you as the purchaser, without your consent or knowledge, and that you never agreed to that, because it's not mentioned in the Subscriber Agreement. Express that you do not consent for this private information to be divulged to other people, even if they are in your Steam friends list, and that you shouldn't have to purge your friends list to keep this information private.

Hopefully, if enough people send complaints to Valve, they will do something about it.


Edit 2: Here is a suggestion I have to solve these problems:

Allow games to be bought in "incognito mode". This may be, for example, a tickbox you could select when you buy a game. If it has been selected, then absolutely nothing of you purchasing, owning or playing that game will be broadcast to anybody in your friends list (or any other third party). They wouldn't see anything about you owning the game (even if they own it themselves.) From their perspective it would be exactly as if you hadn't bought nor owned the game at all.

This may be something that could be enabled or disabled by the game publisher, when submitting it to Steam. If the publisher does not wish to allow people to buy their game incognito, they could choose to do so. But some publishers may well want to allow people to buy their game incognito (especially publishers of certain game genres). The option to buy incognito could be presented to the end user when purchasing the game, if the publisher has chosen to allow it.

Also, what is and is not broadcast to people in your friends list should be made explicit, unambiguous and visible, with a concrete list of such things (rather than vague generic statements). At the very least this should be in the Privacy Policy Agreement, but also preferably somewhere even more visible.

[Sysgen]

May of been mentioned but this is an easy one..... Don't buy games on Steam. Activate keys from other retailers... Mission accomplished and you punish Valve for their privacy policy.

[Warp]

And activating a key on Steam stops it from broadcasting to your friends that you own the game, and when you start playing it?

[=Snappy=]

引用自 Warp：

It becomes more problematic when you have made the "mistake" of adding real-life close friends or family members to your Steam friends
list.

yep. and don't forget co-workers! nightmarish!

in fact, I had an anecdote to share on this -- considered friending someone from a real-life social circle on steam ... which I did not ultimately do.

but ... I don't even want to tell it, on the insanely unlikely chance that just the story alone might identify me. (nothing terribly entertaining .. just another reinforcement of the idea that when it comes to some online activities/identities, maybe our work, family, and other social circles really are best kept separate.)

this much I will say, though (and it's not even directly related to the above story): just because you play the same games as someone, doesn't mean you play them the same way and what you think might be a logical connection might actually be a wolf-sheep/goodguy-badguy sort of situation! (#NotACheaterJustSaying)

and, from another angle, something I can say: personally I'm on steam to play games as an escapist pastime ... and who wants to share that with all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they're likely trying to escape from?!

I'm all for features that increase privacy. What more can I say?

引用自 siegfried：

I guess steam will do nothing before they get legal troubles.

business troubles are equally likely to influence them, if not more-so.

[Warp]

That brings up another good point.

Even if you already knew in advance what adding people to your Steam friends list entails, and you have avoided adding anybody there, and thus you have bought some games you would like to keep private, safe in the knowledge that nobody will see that you have them... what happens now if a good family member, close friend, coworker or somebody else you know really, really well and who you are very good friends with, but you know that they are quite prudish and puritan (eg. because they are religious) and it would be very embarrassing if they knew what kinds of games you play, now asks enthusiastically for you to add them to your Steam friends list. How do you respond?

Maybe you'll just get lucky and they will be content with a "nah, I don't really use the Steam friends list so I'm not really adding anybody there" without further questioning. If you are unlucky, they will insist, and start asking uncomfortable questions that would be difficult to answer. "I don't like you seeing what kind of games I'm playing" might not work.

And all this because you can't choose in Steam, in any way, to hide your games from friends. (And even if you could, but if it were an all-or-nothing thing, by eg. making your profile private, it could still lead to uncomfortable questions.)

I suppose you could just remove those embarrassing games from your account (losing them forever, ie. wasting the money you spent on them), as Steam added that support at some point, but that seems quite drastic. You essentially need to lose your purchases forever in order to avoid some embarrassing situation.

[anto_capone]

Either an opt-in or an opt-out would be great I think.

There are games that I wish all my friends list would read a review I wrote, or see that I am playing recently; but anyone with more than a few people on their friends list knows how much of a useless blur the feed actually is. It reads like a newsreel scroller, background noise that is usually ignored.

It really seems illogical to me to both deny consumers a peaceful sense of privacy and overload them with information about their friend's habits. The store was updated, and it is now even more prominent. This information has value- but it is being devalued because it is being diluted.

Having privacy options would have double benefit. People that like the way things are now, can continue with everything the exact same. Others, might be more selective with what they share, and this would cut down on the deluge of information currently displayed to anyone who bothers to look.

Eventually, you are going to meet someone in real life that also plays video games on Steam. When you do, they will know if you use Steam as well, just by what games you play. If you both play CS:GO, well, wouldn't it be great to play together sometime?

What do you tell them?

"I'm sorry, but I am not comfortable having you on my Steam friends list"?

Simply denying someone a friends request from real life would implicate there is something wrong with you, something you hide from them.

Why would you be afraid to add someone to Steam friends list? Are you ashamed of your freakish gaming habits? Do you have a perverse collection of games that are banned in your native country? Do you game 100 hours a week but don't have a job?

People can jump to all sorts of conclusions. More privacy options would prevent all of this.

[697830]

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/620703493328179543/?ctp=67#c135508031951559846

My Steam Support ticket was closed. With no further response from the appropriate forwarded department.

http://store.steampowered.com/recommended/friendactivity still showing fully prrivate profiles activity to friends list.

And I bet they then wonder why people re-submit the same un-answered questions over again and again? So they can consider it spam.
Seems that I'm somehow prevented from submiting another ticket to ask why ithe previous ticket was closed. Idk if its me or Steam Support is broken. Getting a try again later message,
how convenient for them

TLDR: Valve / Support seems to gives 0 cares about true users privacy modes settings in the first place. We WILL advertise our products activity with a friends list in fully private profile regardless as long as Valve has its way.

[tyguy]

I'm right there with you Warp. Although i understand broadcasting what game you are playing may make others on your friends list curious enough to take a look at the game, there are game I want to buy and play that I simply won't because I don't want others to see that game/games i'm playing. It's incredible they haven't fixed this issue yet.

[[IQAN]Mumbo jumbo]

I agree and support the OP, Warp, in his edeavours.
Kudos for hanging in so long!
You are a hero!

I just came across this thread, read the first 100 posts, and the last 50 or so.
Alot of them from some people who dosen't seem to grasp the concept of privacy.
Can't argue with that.

Back in the late 90's when I finished school and started working, we used to round of the lunch breaks with a couple of Half-life(?) death matches.
I still work at the same place.
So I got my boss on my friends list.

I'm a private person.
Occationally I like to play a naughty game.
That got me thinking. That got me here.

How does the information, about my undertakings, given by Valve to people, change their perception of me?
I don't know. Their thoughts are private.

Even discolsing these minor personal details got me thinking: Self-censorship.
Since this is public.

To the detriment of Valve, In my book, their good name now isn't as good as it was yesterday.
The worst part, when I think about it; It's not a hard fix.
They have smart people employed. And economists. And they' have probably grown to have an upper mangement. By God; shareholder?
The revenue loss by giving people the privacy requested would be minimal.
They got smart people employed.
They could work something out.
But they don't bother.
They don't care about privacy.

Even though they got an actual revenue stream going.
It's not like some other internet site living off of advertisement.
We do pay for the games.
They are good games.
I did a 20+ hours sitting of 'Life is strange' the last weekend.
Great games!

And privacy is on a slippery slope.

Go Warp!
You are my hero!

[Rawex]

引用自 IQANMumbo jumbo：

Thanks for taking the time to share an extremely honest and fresh opinion on the matter, it was nice reading your thoughts.

btw, i did a 24hour 2days weekend run of For Honor Beta and It was great fun.
I Played Kensei Samurai with long sword to Rep1 Level 15.
Sadly i haven't bought the game yet.

To privacy! Everyone will know the day i buy the game, Nooooo matter what!

[Astraea]

To be honest, I cannot fathom why this is even a serious discussion. It seems so terribly obvious that it boggles the mind that there are people who actively oppose any sort of option for more privacy. I can sort of understand people who have no strong feelings either way, but this is the consumer shooting himself in the foot because he can't imagine the possibility that things might be different.

For those people, who feel they have to go along just because they tentavely agreed to an agreement, which, even for the most generous interpretation leaves some gray areas. I can only leave a cautionary quote; it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary. Once you fall into that pitfall, you lose any agency you thought you might have.

At any rate, +1. More options for privacy is always better. Always fight for a better future and keep up the good fight OP.

[Warp]

引用自 IQANMumbo jumbo：

How does the information, about my undertakings, given by Valve to people, change their perception of me?
I don't know. Their thoughts are private.

And the worst thing is that Steam does not tell you that it's happening.

Even if Steam were completely and absolutely open and clear about exactly what is being shown to people in your friends list, and exactly when, and it would inform you of this prior to you adding people in your friends list or purchasing a game, it would still be bad, but better.

However, Steam doesn't do that. It tells you absolutely nothing. No indication whatsoever that people in your friends list can see your purchases, how many hours you have played, when you start playing a game... Nothing. The only way you can deduce this is happening is because you can see those things from people in your friends list.

As Steam tells you nothing, you have no idea what is being shared. Maybe people are seeing info about you that you don't even know (because you haven't stumbled across that info yourself, about other people). It's just not possible to know. Steam doesn't disclose this information in any way.

And what's even worse, it deceptively makes you believe that if you make your profile private, then people in your friends list will not see anything from you. They will. And Steam will not tell you. Nor ask your permission. Steam is doing it surreptitiously, behind the scenes, undisclosed, without telling nor asking.

And, for some unfathomable reason, some people defend this practice. I cannot even begin to comprehend why.

[The_Driver]

引用自 Warp：

And the worst thing is that Steam does not tell you that it's happening.

Which is especially nice if you don't expect to advertise for a game, you may not even be allowed to advertise for (e.g. youth protection laws). And playing a game is like a recommendation, which is borderline(?) advertising.

(Sry, if that was already mentioned, thread is too long and search too bad)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I am not sure if this has been mentioned already, but if absolute privacy is that much of a concern, you can always create another free Steam account and buy all the pervy games your heart desires and set your profile to private so no one can see what you are playing.

You can send friend requests to your main account/s and use family sharing to play those games on your main account too, if you aren't concerned that people can see how many hours you have played those games. Just set your main account to offline when playing those games so they don't know when you are playing.

Using family sharing will allow you to play those games on your main account without ever needing to log into your secret account if need be.

* oh wow. I didn't realize I was necroing this thread. It was pretty high up in the forum. I guess this section is not posted in often. *

[Kr.]

Also an option to hide specific things on your profile, like hiding your friends list for example

[Warp]

引用自 Omgwtfbbqkitten：

* oh wow. I didn't realize I was necroing this thread.

I hope that was just a joke.