myDDO violates Turbine privacy policy

[moorewr]

I hate to point this out, BUT:


Turbine warrants that it will not share information with third parties without the users permissions. Now, this can be implied or explicit (opt-in or opt-out).
There is no way to prevent farming of character names, not to mention significant information about these characters.


myDDO is pretty **** cool, and it is something I had been asking for. HOWEVER, it is undermined by the inability to opt yourself out, and more to the point this inability

Turbine Privacy Policy: http://turbine.com/news/58

The Collection and Use section states:

Non-identifiable information" is information about a user that is presented in a form distinguishable from information relating to other users but not in a form that personally identifies contact and/or billing information for any user, or enables the recipient to communicate directly with any user unless agreed to by the user in advance of such communication. Aggregate information and/or non-identifiable information may be used by Turbine for any purpose, including, without limitation, to improve the Turbine Sites and Services, for internal marketing studies, or simply to collect demographic information about Turbine's users.
Clearly, charcaters on myDDO are not presented in aggregate.

Amusing aside: I predict in-games mails from Spammers saying "We see you have a +1 Wis bauble equipped in the trinket slot of your level 18 rogue. Ouch! We have your bloodstone ready to go for just $24.99."

[Uska]

WEll I hate the whole thing it wont it work anyways and if I wanted people to know about what characters were mine I would tell them, this thing is the closest thing to causing me to quit that there has been.

[Twerpp]

LOL we have a lawyer among us who knew.

[Strakeln]

A fairly simple and standard convention could and should have been followed regarding my.ddo.com:

By default, each character should be set to anonymous. Allow people to opt in, not out.

[moorewr]

LOL we have a lawyer among us who knew.

Sir! IANL!

[Impaqt]

I hate to point this out, BUT:


Turbine warrants that it will not share information with third parties without the users permissions. Now, this can be implied or explicit (opt-in or opt-out).
There is no way to prevent farming of character names, not to mention significant information about these characters.


myDDO is pretty **** cool, and it is something I had been asking for. HOWEVER, it is undermined by the inability to opt yourself out, and more to the point this inability

Turbine Privacy Policy: http://turbine.com/news/58

The Collection and Use section states:

Clearly, charcaters on myDDO are not presented in aggregate.

Amusing aside: I predict in-games mails from Spammers saying "We see you have a +1 Wis bauble equipped in the trinket slot of your level 18 rogue. Ouch! We have your bloodstone ready to go for just $24.99."

Gotta Point this out...

THe Privacy poicy only applies to things that Turbine doesnt already OWN. Your Characters are not owned by you. They are Turbines. The privacy policy applies to things liek your email address and bank account information.

[moorewr]

A fairly simple and standard convention could and should have been followed regarding my.ddo.com:

By default, each character should be set to anonymous. Allow people to opt in, not out.


Unfortunately, it appears Turbine thinks the default (all info displayed but not linked to a forum user) is anonymous enough. I mean, that's OK for a default provided they give us the option of opting the character out completely. I just can't understand not having the choice at all.

[Angelus_dead]

THe Privacy poicy only applies to things that Turbine doesnt already OWN.
Wherever did that idea come from?

[pumagirl418]

if i want to be anon, let me be anon :( only toon anon is my first toon. the others won't go anon, tho being marked and saved anon.

i don't want to share my builds thanks, let others figure it out themselves

[miceelf88]

I get the concern about privacy, but I must be missing something about the displays. When I log on and look at my character, all I can see are SDCIWCh, my class and level and my equipment. This seems a small bit of what goes into a build per se. i.e., I don't see feats or enhancements. Am I missing something?

[Delt]

Clearly, charcaters on myDDO are not presented in aggregate.

"The characters" are not you, they do not identify you nor are they even owned by you. All creations in game are property of Turbine -- all you do is lease the software and pay for access to their servers.

It's a fine try and all, but you are way off base.

[Tinrae]

Amusing aside: I predict in-games mails from Spammers saying "We see you have a +1 Wis bauble equipped in the trinket slot of your level 18 rogue. Ouch! We have your bloodstone ready to go for just $24.99."


To be fair, I am a subscriber to Turbine's LoTRO which uses the exact same system as MyDDO and this has never happened to me. All my characters on MyLoTRO are identified as mine, I play on one of the most populous servers, and I keep a blog there so I'm rather public - but I've had none of those kinds of issues you describe.

[chton13]

LOL we have a lawyer among us who knew.

Apparently though a not very skilled one, :) non of the character information allows you to be identified, unless you change the default from anon, so no one can connect your forum acct with your characters. Nice try though. As said in this thread none of your characters really belong to you, so Turbine is free to do what they want with the info, as long as it can't be used to identify you in RL.
I think the fears are funny, those who are so "uber" people will steal their build, or those who feel so insecure that people won't group with them, LOL.

[Samadhi]

a Fairly Simple And Standard Convention Could And Should Have Been Followed Regarding My.ddo.com:

By Default, Each Character Should Be Set To Anonymous. Allow People To Opt in, Not out.

Qft

[moorewr]

I should have expected silly crowd to come out for this thread.

Let me try and break this down for you:

This is NOT about me. In fact, I have shared all my characters for your enjoyment here: http://my.ddo.com/moorewr
I am NOT a lawyer, but some of you clearly are sea lawyers.
Clearly Turbine owns your character and it's gear. Why even bring it up?
Whether the information on (the Turbine owned Character that you play) is private information is up to the opinion of the player.
Turbine has promised not share information except in aggregate. This is information. It is NOT in aggregate.

[Impaqt]

I should have expected silly crowd to come out for this thread.

Let me try and break this down for you:

This is NOT about me. In fact, I have shared all my characters for your enjoyment here: http://my.ddo.com/moorewr
I am NOT a lawyer, but some of you clearly are sea lawyers.
Clearly Turbine owns your character and it's gear. Why even bring it up?
Whether the information on (the Turbine owned Character that you play) is private information is up to the opinion of the player.
Turbine has promised not share information except in aggregate. This is information. It is NOT in aggregate.


Because they are not sharing >Our< information. They are sharing >Their< information.

Can someone Get your Real name, Address, Phone Number or even email address by Browsing my.ddo.com?

[chton13]

Because they are not sharing >Our< information. They are sharing >Their< information.

Can someone Get your Real name, Address, Phone Number or even email address by Browsing my.ddo.com?

Why try to reason with people who want to be upset? It's not like they want anything but for people to agree with their flawed conclusions. Don't use reason, get angry!!!!

[moorewr]

Why try to reason with people who want to be upset? It's not like they want anything but for people to agree with their flawed conclusions. Don't use reason, get angry!!!!

It's not clear what your post has to do with anything in this thread. Maybe you should clarify who you think is angry and unreasonable?

[moorewr]

Because they are not sharing >Our< information. They are sharing >Their< information.

Can someone Get your Real name, Address, Phone Number or even email address by Browsing my.ddo.com?

You've said twice that you only consider those pieces of information to be covered by the privacy policy, and I wish to assure that I have read and understood your position, but do not agree.

[Impaqt]

You've said twice that you only consider those pieces of information to be covered by the privacy policy, and I wish to assure that I have read and understood your position, but do not agree.

Why though?

WHy would a Character in a game that is in no way inked to your personal identity on a public scale be considered "Private"?

[chton13]

You've said twice that you only consider those pieces of information to be covered by the privacy policy, and I wish to assure that I have read and understood your position, but do not agree.

Well I won't name names on the forum and while they may not be in this particular thread, you can certainly find alot of people apparently angry enough over this to quit playing solely because of this. As to unreasonable I point to the quote above, everyone is entitled to their opinion but that doesn't mean opinions can't be wrong, If your opinion is 2+2 = 5 or your opinion is that your character's stats or equipment are covered by the section you quote, your opinion is wrong. Doesn't mean you're not entitled to it, just means it doesn't operate on a factual basis. You'd be surprised how many people don't let facts interfere with their opinions.

[Healemup]

What if the information were available in-game? While I don't have first hand knowledge of this, I have heard that other MMOs have much of the information on builds, gear and whatnot available for examination by other players in-game. In fact, someone was even surprised when that information was not available. Would it feel less intrusive if they had done that from the outset? If the original release had shown not only your BIO, but your stats as well, would there have been an uproar?

Personally, I have lots of decent gear for most of my characters and am reasonably happy with their intial stats. I could really care less if someone want to research them. Of course, I always listen to other people's opinions on me and determine if I want to take their advice or not. I am not above learning that I can improve and am not offended when someone thinks differently than me on what is good.

Plus, I can die with any character... :D

[moorewr]

Why though?

WHy would a Character in a game that is in no way inked to your personal identity on a public scale be considered "Private"?

I disagree with the "in no way" part of the discussion because you play as that character in game.. Your forum alias and your in game alias are pseudonyms in the same way. Again, certainly both are most certainly Turbine's property, but this isn't about property rights.

[Impaqt]

I disagree with the "in no way" part of the discussion because you play as that character in game.. Your forum alias and your in game alias are pseudonyms in the same way. Again, certainly both are most certainly Turbine's property, but this isn't about property rights.

I'm just trying to understand your side as you said you understand mine.

What way do you see the information as Private? You have your character names in your Sig even. If you considered those names Private, why would they be in your signature?

[miceelf88]

LOTRO has an "inspect" function, which lets you look at folks' gear and such ingame. I don't think it's that controversial, over there.

[moorewr]

I'm just trying to understand your side as you said you understand mine.

What way do you see the information as Private? You have your character names in your Sig even. If you considered those names Private, why would they be in your signature?

Multi-part answer:

1) Again, this discussion is not about me at all. In my particular case I choose to share my character names, here and in myDDO - note the word "choose."
2) This voluntary act of sharing does not mean I surrender the privacy granted to me by Turbine's policy.
3) A player can opt to leave their characters names out of their signature, and to play the game anonymously, but they can not prevent significant details about their character from being displayed on myDDO. They have a reasonable expectation that they should be able to block that information, or more to the point, give permission before anything is shared.

[JayDubya]

In general, I think it's perfectly legal for Turbine to do this, and so, strictly following the title, I have to disagree with my good friend MooreWR

However, I do think that deciding to arbitrarily open up the information for everyone without opt-in (or even opt-out) is bad form. It's going to make people needlessly angry. Not me, I don't particularly care. But it is very clear that other people are quite upset.

Why is Turbine provoking such angst, when they don't need to?

[Impaqt]

In general, I think it's perfectly legal for Turbine to do this, and so, strictly following the title, I have to disagree with my good friend MooreWR

However, I do think that deciding to arbitrarily open up the information for everyone without opt-in (or even opt-out) is bad form. It's going to make people needlessly angry. Not me, I don't particularly care. But it is very clear that other people are quite upset.

Why is Turbine provoking such angst, when they don't need to?

I think there are a LOT more people that are very happy and excited to see this than there are paranoid folks that believ etheir character IS them....

[Phidius]

...Why is Turbine provoking such angst, when they don't need to?

I ask myself that many, many times a day... and it's never about the my.ddo.com


I think it's the same reason that Demmin Nass kills them afterwards...

[moorewr]

In general, I think it's perfectly legal for Turbine to do this, and so, strictly following the title, I have to disagree with my good friend MooreWR

However, I do think that deciding to arbitrarily open up the information for everyone without opt-in (or even opt-out) is bad form. It's going to make people needlessly angry. Not me, I don't particularly care. But it is very clear that other people are quite upset.

Why is Turbine provoking such angst, when they don't need to?

They have every legal right to dispose of their property, just as Credit Card companies have the right to disclose your buying habits to who ever they like if they choose to write their policy that way. Under American law, most consumer privacy rights have to do with purchases and demographic information, and revolve around disclosure to the customer of the policy in use.

This isn't about their rights under the law, but about Turbine's breach of their good faith undertaking in their privacy policy to not share user-specific data they collect.

To your second point - what purpose does it serve for them not to provide a true opt-out? Who wants to defend forcing people to live with the exposure, especially as a novelty in a 3 1/2 year old game?

[Quanefel]

In general, I think it's perfectly legal for Turbine to do this, and so, strictly following the title, I have to disagree with my good friend MooreWR

However, I do think that deciding to arbitrarily open up the information for everyone without opt-in (or even opt-out) is bad form. It's going to make people needlessly angry. Not me, I don't particularly care. But it is very clear that other people are quite upset.

Why is Turbine provoking such angst, when they don't need to?

It's Turbine.

[moorewr]

I think there are a LOT more people that are very happy and excited to see this than there are paranoid folks that believ etheir character IS them....

I this thread is NOT about Eriik. ;) In fact it is not about any particular user, but about correct policy.