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Comment by speeder | Hacker News Reader

The article wonders, why people got upset about Red Shell on Conan Exiles for example, but not on Civilization VI...

I think it is related to two very important details.

First, Red Shell purpose, as stated by Red Shell themselves, is to create a "fingerprint" of the computer, yes, each tidbit of info separately is not "identifiable" but the purpose of the software is build indentifiable information in first place.

And second... the game where people found Red Shell first, and went nuts about it, Conan Exiles, is a game that lots of people don't want anyone to know they play it, the game has lots of very politically incorrect themes (slavery for example), and is very popular to use for Erotic Roleplay... People of course get paranoid when there tracking software in their porn!

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> The article wonders, why people got upset about Red Shell on Conan Exiles for example, but not on Civilization VI...

Actually there has been quite a bit of backlash, there's a thread with around 2000 comments about it in the forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/289070/discussions/0/17095641...

Also, the recent reviews have been negative because of Red Shell.

> Conan Exiles, is a game that lots of people don't want anyone to know they play it [...] and is very popular to use for Erotic Roleplay

Citation required?

> Citation required?

Are you saying that it's difficult for you to google those search terms?

I wonder if the top comment in that thread is accurate in saying it's against the GDPR. I suppose the real answer is that time will tell.

As a general rule, if the data can be used to identify some users, it falls under the GDPR. From Article 4(1):

> ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

Also, the other article on the HN front page right now is about Civilization VI removing Red Shell after a backlash. (I suspect that article is what lead to someone submitting this older one about the other games it was removed from.) The article's claim that there was no backlash against Civ VI just doesn't stand up. It reads like Wired is uncritically regurgitating the publishers' PR spin justifying spying on their customers.

Interesting things people are saying in that forum thread.

Claims that deleting the related file causes the game to no longer launch. Why is that necessary for marketing tracking or were they just too lazy to skip over that particular file not found error?

That the SteamID can be transmitted. Seems like identifiable information to me despite the claims otherwise.

There is a way to opt out of the tracking. Going to the opt out page I see a request for your gamer ID for the game in question. Which goes back to that being identifiable information. It also states a game could have opt out options in place so I'm wondering why those seem to not be available in the game?

At this point I say I'm surprised that their actually is surprise from developers at this backlash. This sort of things gets attempted every few years that comes to the same result.

so you are saying spyware is fine is you don't have anything to hide?

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