This is where (surprise surprise) I respect Valve. The hardware survey is opt in and transparent. They get useful info out of it and it’s just..not scummy.

There are all sorts of best practices for getting info without vacuuming up everyone’s data in opaque ways.

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embedding-shape 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair, you can be pretty sure they're heavily leveraging all their store data, in loads of ways. They probably sit on the biggest dataset of video game preferences for people in general, and I'm betting they make use of it heavily.

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LtWorf 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And you think microsoft isn't already doing that?

	▲	embedding-shape 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Of course they do, why would I believe otherwise?

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Forgeties79 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you have details on what they’re collecting and how they’re using it/if they’re selling it to advertisers/etc, I’m happy to make a judgment.

I’m not saying they don’t engage in any of those practices, I am specifically talking about the hardware survey.

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embedding-shape 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> If you have details on what they’re collecting

Well, you can start with everything a typical HTTP request and TCP connection comes with, surely they're already storing those things for "anti-fraud practices", wouldn't be far to imagine this data warehouse is used for analytics and product decisions as well.

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Forgeties79 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>wouldn’t be far to imagine

I explicitly said I agree it’s a distinct possibility, but that’s not proof. If you have actual info on what they collect and how it’s used I can assess it. As it is we don’t know the extent or uses at all, we are speculating.

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embedding-shape 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Personally if I don't have any evidence of something, I'll leave it unsaid if I like what Valve is doing about that something or not. Saying "We don't have evidence either way, we're just speculating, so therefore I respect what Valve does" feels like the wrong way around. But you do you :)

	▲	Forgeties79 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>But you do you :) This was unnecessary and patronizing. Clearly this won't be productive as it's clear what I am trying to say, but you seem to intent on taking a narrow interpretation of my point to paint me as someone who blindly trusts Valve (I don't). Have a good one man.

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salomonk_mur 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They are analyzing absolutely every click you make, I can guarantee it.

	▲	Forgeties79 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And if you provide evidence of this (and yes I think it is possible) then I will say it’s bad. The hardware survey is not that.