Offer Wall Update

[DevKiller]

Turbine is not and has never engaged in the selling of anyone's personal data.

To be clear, service providers under contract with us may indeed have access to specific information that is required to do their job (in this case, reconcile activity to player accounts and send confirmation e-mails). This is all closely regulated by our agreements with the partners and any breach of those agreements would be a very serious issue.

So you gave them away for Free?

[Borror0]

This sums up the response from Turbine. We upset our fans. We are not going to do it again, for now.

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with the concept of earning Turbine Points for doing something outside the game, like watching advertisement. It would allow cheapskates to to earn Turbine Points in a way that is still profitable to Turbine. If they can come up with something like that, would you really object?

The problem with the Offer Wall was that it exposed users to shady practices. If that is addressed, where is the harm?

[Gol]

I say open the wall up and let Gol have a go at it and then post the results.

I appreciate the props, but this isn't necessary. I just want to know why they sent our billing/game usernames over the wire just for viewing the wall. I haven't even started to dig in to the cookies they put on my computer to track me, but I was going to do that next.

So you gave them away for Free?

That's the only conclusion I can come to regarding our billing/game usernames.

[Maxson]

This sums up the response from Turbine. We upset our fans. We are not going to do it again, for now.

Never made a mistake yourself huh?

Now, as I'm an idealist I'm going to give them a break. I don't mind if the offer wall comes back one but, but I'd like it to be a bit neater and actually work for me.

They're offering you some points, for an extra potential source of revenue, With all the whine over this I'm beginning to think a lot of you have never wanted for money. Let's see how great your supposed ethics and your lack of mistakes gets when you need to increase revenue.

[smatt]

First, thank you for taking it down and for acknowledging the screw up.



Second...
This is most disappointing that you degrade concrete evidence of username passing to "speculation". What they did with it IS IRRELEVANT. The fact that you gave them our DDO billing/game usernames (and refuse to acknowledge so) is highly insulting to me, personally, having seen it with my own eyes and no less than a slap in the face to everybody else who visited the offer wall.

So it appears that in this line of the network..... Information was travelling from Playspan (Store Vendor) which obviously is linked into the entire DDO network, to SuperRewards.

I'm getting the feeling I was correct in my assumption that all the problems that came about last Fri/Sat with logins and the downgrading of ViP/Prem players to FtP had something to do with the set-up and implementation of the dreaded "Wall".

I can say that they did remove the mess... A bit too late... But they did take it down...

Now the idea that they did this offer wall for the players.... This was about revenue for them, it had nothing to do with being nice to their customers.... That's fine, but painting it as such, is simple dishonesty.... If they really want to get free points to players... Do something within the game for players to EARN more free points.... That would garner more indirect profit for them than anything like getting hooked up with known scammers like Super Rewards...

Increase favor point rewards to say 75TP's per 100 favor over 1,000 favor, and then even more after they hit 2,000 favor. Or perhaps say an award for capping a character "Congradulations, you've earned a bonus award of 1,000 Turbine points to spend in the Turbine Store for hitting the maximum Xp on Slurpy McGimpy!" ... A couple ideas that aren't easily exploitible, and that encourage people to actually play the game, while also rewarding in game acccomplishments. Shouldnt' the emphasis be, to get peopel to be actively playign the game, the more people actively playing means the more groups, means it becomes more enticing for peopel to be spending real money on TP's.....


I'm just saying....

[AZgreentea]

So you gave them away for Free?

That not how this works. Turbine gives them permission to ask you for the information. If you provide it to that other company, you do so in a direct way with that company. Turbine only allows them to use its web site for a finders fee, they dont sell the data you gave Turbine.

[Hendrik]

Thank you Market and Patience.

Faith restored.

[Gol]

becouse it's a simple way to facility a unique (email/username combo) identifier per account using the existing data. the partners that got the info alraedy HAD IT, nothing new was given to them.. the problem was the implementation of sending private, sensative and vital data over a unencrypted connection.

It's a simple way, yes, but in no way, shape, or form the best. There are plenty of equally simple and much safer ways to accomplish the same task.

[Anderei]

I appreciate the props, but this isn't necessary. I just want to know why they sent our billing/game usernames over the wire just for viewing the wall. I haven't even started to dig in to the cookies they put on my computer to track me, but I was going to do that next.

I think for this is probably
a) 1 clueless engineer to blame, to not have used a secured https channel
b) the system to blame, they do not have a security/quality review before going online which should've noticed this.

[DevKiller]

That not how this works. Turbine gives them permission to ask you for the information. If you provide it to that other company, you do so in a direct way with that company. Turbine only allows them to use its web site for a finders fee, they dont sell the data you gave Turbine.

Sorry I forgot the sarcasm tags on my post

[tihocan]

Based on your feedback, we’re stepping away from the ‘Offer’ category for now.

Thanks, much appreciated

[Kintro]

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with the concept of earning Turbine Points for doing something outside the game, like watching advertisement. It would allow cheapskates to to earn Turbine Points in a way that is still profitable to Turbine. If they can come up with something like that, would you really object?

The problem with the Offer Wall was that it exposed users to shady practices. If that is addressed, where is the harm?

Indeed! If I could fill in an actual survey and get some TP that'd be great. They just have to not ask for my email address, physical address, phone number, etc. I also wouldn't mind signing up for a newsletter for some TPs, at least then I know I'm going to get a bit of spam and can weigh up the pros/cons.

If it were setup in a way that we were completely anonymous to a third party with legitimate offers I don't see the harm. Turbine can send them a random "player id" (not your username/email) and act as proxy for communications between us.

EDIT: Random thought - TPs for confirmed bug reports on live or Llamania?

[stainer]

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with the concept of earning Turbine Points for doing something outside the game, like watching advertisement. It would allow cheapskates to to earn Turbine Points in a way that is still profitable to Turbine. If they can come up with something like that, would you really object?

The problem with the Offer Wall was that it exposed users to shady practices. If that is addressed, where is the harm?

I agree. The concept is very solid. If they can do it securely, I would be all for it. What is lost in all of this, is Turbine was trying to give the players more, without losing revenue. I don't think anyone will say that Turbine should not turn a profit. This process they tried may not have been thought out very well.

Hopefully they will get a solid plan in place and come up with an acceptable replacement. Remember that when they do, there always be someone a little put out by the change.

[Gol]

I think for this is probably
a) 1 clueless engineer to blame, to not have used a secured https channel
b) the system to blame, they do not have a security/quality review before going online which should've noticed this.

The username going to superrewards was over https, not that it matters. I mean, if you're sending it to fraudsters and scammers to begin with, who cares if other fraudsters and scammers intercept it on the wire?

[broolthebeast]

regardless our trust was breached, and I for one will not be returning. I am glad to see that gol sparked some change by putting turbine in front of the spotlight with the community.

That being said, our billing account name and email address should of never ever been exposed the way they were. Too many alternative options were out there and you took the path of less resistance. Thats a shame.

good luck to my friends that still want to support turbine. Some of you will be missed.

[Ministry]

Hey, props for trying to help out the player base.

I'm pretty **** sure Turbine didn't think this was going to be a bad thing.

Seriously, with such a competitive gaming market, a F2P / VIP (paying) concept, etc.. etc... Why would Turbine want to jeopardize their players?

I think it's great they tried to help people out with free? points and teamed with some companies to give them more exposure.

People... Capitialism is alive and well and that's okay.

Do things go wrong with other businesses? Yup.

Do companies own up and fix things? Not all the time.

2 wins here...

1 - A player base that is active and cares and gets **** involved and fast

2 - A company that realizes a problem and corrects it asap.

Not the end of the world.

Keep trying Turbine. We aren't going to love everything you do, but as long as you are trying, then I'm gonna keep giving you my cash.

/salute.

[Missing_Minds]

It's a simple way, yes, but in no way, shape, or form the best. There are plenty of equally simple and much safer ways to accomplish the same task.

I'm no expert, but everything I can think of would require the other side to have more database work done to faciltate a secure method which could have been a deal breaker.

I found the concept and idea very cute and I liked it. But the methods chosen failed badly.

And honestly, I'm surprised you aren't trying to take them to task more for obvious fishing attempts to newly made, unused anywhere emails which would indicate that
A. Turbine's partner lied and is libable to be sued.
B. The information was leaked (somehow) either in transit, at Turbine, or at the Partner. Given history of such spam, I'm leaning towards sniffing in Transit or their Partner has leaks. At which point they are libale again, but without the cost of malicious intent.

[Gol]

So you gave them away for Free?

Oh, and for the record, emails and usernames are not legally considered "personally identifiable information", and can therefore be legally given/sold without consent.

[rest]

I'm going to try to be as clear as possible here: No one's information has been sold to any third parties.

That you know about.

A company like SuperScamRewards! isn't exactly a pillar of morality or high standards.

[Levonestral]

Turbine is not and has never engaged in the selling of anyone's personal data.

To be clear, service providers under contract with us may indeed have access to specific information that is required to do their job (in this case, reconcile activity to player accounts and send confirmation e-mails). This is all closely regulated by our agreements with the partners and any breach of those agreements would be a very serious issue.

And we agreed to THEIR license WHEN ?

No, you didn't sell it, you're right. You worked around that rule through other "contracts" claiming our information was safe. When did WE agree the company was "safe", were WE ever given the chance to choose ? No.

Point of the matter is, you gave our personal information to a third party without our consent.