Option to Hide Email Address When Gifting

[Impact]

It's that time of year, lots of good games are going on sale at the perfect price to buy for friends. This is usually where I spring into action and snap up a bunch of lesser known titles that I know my friends would really enjoy to playing together. However, despite how trustworthy I feel my friends are, I'd still rather not have them knowing the email address I use with my steam account.

I used to get around this issue by offering up a one sided trade where I'd put the game up and they'd accept it. Except with the new trade rules in effect, the only options left to me are to wait 30 days or change the email linked with my steam to an alternate address every time I feel like sharing the joy.

Getting to the point: I would really enjoy an alternate option when gifting; one that allows us to either gift without sending an email or perhaps one that would allow us to have our email address witheld from the information given in the recipiant's email gift notification.

When it comes to keeping your account secure, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would really appreaciate a feature like this.

[Eifersucht18]

Hi! Did you ever get any resolution to this issue of witholding email addresses when gifting, or find a workaround? Am curious as well. Cheers..!

[MaximumBunny]

You email the gift to yourself and then send the link that looks like gift/1234abcd/?redeemer=[e-mail] to them after removing the youremail part. That's the safest way to do it at the moment.

Valve incorrectly assumes that people's Steam emails are their personal ones that they share with friends. They're going to be very slow in fixing this problem and even slower in recognizing that it exists and is a problem.

[supertrooper225]

Originally posted by MaximumBunny:

You email the gift to yourself and then send the link that looks like gift/1234abcd/?redeemer=[e-mail] to them after removing the youremail part. That's the safest way to do it at the moment.

Valve incorrectly assumes that people's Steam emails are their personal ones that they share with friends. They're going to be very slow in fixing this problem and even slower in recognizing that it exists and is a problem.

It is understandable at the very least. Why wouldn't you be using a personal address for a video game site? That seems like a pretty safe assumption to me.

[MaximumBunny]

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

It is understandable at the very least. Why wouldn't you be using a personal address for a video game site? That seems like a pretty safe assumption to me.

Because people don't need to know my shopping/billing accounts. They're not the same that I'd use for Messengers/social services. You sign up to a store with a community as a secondary feature. If you use the same email for everything then that's on you but it's not the brightest thing to do.

[supertrooper225]

Originally posted by MaximumBunny:

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

It is understandable at the very least. Why wouldn't you be using a personal address for a video game site? That seems like a pretty safe assumption to me.

Because people don't need to know my shopping/billing accounts. They're not the same that I'd use for Messengers/social services. You sign up to a store with a community as a secondary feature. If you use the same email for everything then that's on you but it's not the brightest thing to do.

I assumed you meant you were using a company account when you said 'Valve assumes you are only using a personal account'. Multiple personal accounts is something completely different. Bill or not...that is still a personal account. The way I see it, the gifting thing is meant for people to trade with their friends. Which used to mean people that you trust. Not a random on the net. But hey, it wouldn't hurt I guess.

[Impact]

Originally posted by MaximumBunny:

You email the gift to yourself and then send the link that looks like gift/1234abcd/?redeemer=[e-mail] to them after removing the youremail part. That's the safest way to do it at the moment.

Valve incorrectly assumes that people's Steam emails are their personal ones that they share with friends. They're going to be very slow in fixing this problem and even slower in recognizing that it exists and is a problem.

Sounds like an excellent workaround. Thanks for sharing!

On the topic of the personal account thing: I generally trust the friends I trade and gift with but I still take every precaution I can to keep my Steam account as secure as possible. These steps include making sure as few people as possible know my account email. The less people see it the less likely it'll be broken into.

Thanks to you all for responding to my post. It had gotten so buried I'd forgotten about it myself.

[Visi]

Revealing the gifting user's email address is completely unnecessary and shows a lack of thought as far as privacy concerns go. Just because I buy something for someone doesn't mean I want to give them the email address I have connected to my Steam account. There is no defense for such a practice. No rational one, at least. There should definitely be an option to keep that private, or, at the very least, a warning when purchasing or gifting a product to someone that your private email address will be shared with that individual for no reason whatsoever.

[マスキュリン]

Hu? Between March and April this year they removed the email from the Gift message you get mailed.

"Your friend X (email) has given you a gift subscription...[...]" is now, at least since mid-april, just "Your friend X has given you a gift subscription...[...]"

[⬨ H Σ А T ⬨]

^ Just confirmed, email is no longer exposed to the recipient, thanks for the update!

[Impact]

Oh! Thanks for sharing! Glad it only took them four years to resolve that. haha