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General discussionTelemetry in GOG GALAXY 2.0(91 posts)(91 posts)
(91 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 27, 2020
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timppu: EDIT: Oh, EU GDPR... so is the Galaxy client supposed to tell you what kind of data they are collecting and for what purpose?
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Gersen: It's in the application agreement:

4.3 GOG GALAXY Application.

If you use GOG GALAXY Application (including GOG GALAXY Store) we will also collect technical logs, information about achievements in games you play and how long you play them; your multiplayer sessions and your activities in the GOG GALAXY Application and on other platforms connected to your GOG account for the general operational purposes of GOG GALAXY Application. If you choose to connect your accounts from other platforms with GOG GALAXY Application , depending on the features that the particular integration currently supports, GOG will access personal and non-personal information such as your user name and user id, avatar, game list, gametime, game achievements, friend list (user name, user id, avatar) and their status, chat and conversation history. We will not store your account credentials. In addition, if you purchase games using GOG GALAXY Store, we will collect information related to your transaction mentioned in point (d) above as well as the relevant product id and product entitlement id. You can read more about this optional account connecting feature in our GOG GALAXY Application Privacy Notice here. The Privacy Notice forms part of this Privacy Policy.
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Gersen: I am pretty sure that most of the stuff mentioned earlier are likely also collected when you use the website, as in which page you consult, where you click, what you search, etc... it's pretty standard stuff most online shop collect.

As long as Galaxy doesn't start logging and collection things that you are doing "outside" of it, as some games or client where sometime caught doing, there is not really anything "shocking" or "outrageous" in the OP's list.
One might argue that the term "for the general operational purposes of GOG GALAXY Application" does not really cover connecting the collected data with the user account. At least i would see it that way.
Posted November 27, 2020
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jhAtgog: I'm currently still using the old client, so i have to ask: is there any form of manual opt-in or confirmation from the user, before the data is collected? If not, this is definitely unexpected and creepy.
So far I've not stumbled upon an option to disable this in the client. To get a confirmation someone would have to contact support about it. If you live in the EU, there's probably a legal way to forbid data processing for marketing reasons with GDPR but I have not looked into the details. I will update you when I figure that out.

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Orpheus-GOG: Umm...really? New to the Internet or just too naive?

I honestly don't understand why you're so "shocked" about all this.
Oh come on, no reason to act like this. I did not fearmonger but gave a pretty balanced opinion about this.

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Orpheus-GOG: ALL clients do this. Every one of them. From $team to Epic to Uplay to Battle.net. That's why they exist: to keep track of EVERYTHING the user does.
Any source on this? I actually collected the data on this but you're just making claims based on presumptions.

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Orpheus-GOG: So kudos for your hard work...but I'm afraid you're not going to accomplish anything with it.
I've not made this post to convince anyone with an extreme opinion. But those are not the only people, even if it sometimes might seem so. There are a lot of people who are simply uninformed about this issue and have not formed an opinion yet. I'm here to provide the evidence to them about what is happening in their clients.
Posted November 27, 2020
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Time4Tea: Not if you use a privacy-focused browser; block javascript from Google Analytics; and use a spy blocker.
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Orkhepaj: why? how else would google know what i want to buy ? I want personal ads
Ok, that's great. Good for you. I don't.

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Time4Tea: Thanks for this post. More good reasons to never allow Galaxy to touch my computer. It's spyware, like all the other third-party client apps.
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Orkhepaj: spy? what does it spy? you? why would it spy you?
How do you know it isn't? As is the case for any closed-source application running on your computer, you don't have any idea what it's really doing. This is why I run all of my proprietary games in a sandbox.
Posted November 27, 2020
Not only clients, no one wants to miss the data collection boat, even your OS has it...
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Orkhepaj:
Are you trying to b8?
Post edited November 27, 2020 by Dark_art_
Posted November 27, 2020
low rated
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Orkhepaj: why? how else would google know what i want to buy ? I want personal ads
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Time4Tea: Ok, that's great. Good for you. I don't.

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Orkhepaj: spy? what does it spy? you? why would it spy you?
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Time4Tea: How do you know it isn't? As is the case for any closed-source application running on your computer, you don't have any idea what it's really doing. This is why I run all of my proprietary games in a sandbox.
guess what i have no idea what open-source applications doing here :D
do you know what the apps you are using doing in the background?
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Dark_art_: Not only clients, no one wants to miss the data collection boat, even your OS has it...
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Orkhepaj:
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Dark_art_: Are you trying to b8?
why would i ? i just write the truth, nobody does care what you personally play not even your friends most of the time :P
but i still dont get it why all these collected infos are bad , just explain why are they bad
Post edited November 27, 2020 by Orkhepaj
Posted November 27, 2020
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Orkhepaj: guess what i have no idea what open-source applications doing here :D
do you know what the apps you are using doing in the background?
They can do whatever they want within the confines of their sandbox. It doesn't really matter, because I don't allow closed-source applications access to the rest of my computer.
Posted November 27, 2020
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Dark_art_: Are you trying to b8?
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Orkhepaj: why would i ? i just write the truth, nobody does care what you personally play not even your friends most of the time :P
but i still dont get it why all these collected infos are bad , just explain why are they bad
Sorry, I misunderstood you...

I don't have to explain anything but I'm sure you are able to look at the top most valuable public companies on western countrys...
Posted November 27, 2020
low rated
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Orkhepaj: guess what i have no idea what open-source applications doing here :D
do you know what the apps you are using doing in the background?
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Time4Tea: They can do whatever they want within the confines of their sandbox. It doesn't really matter, because I don't allow closed-source applications access to the rest of my computer.
what if they are open-souced? do you check their code and then compare the hash codes to see you have the same program?
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Orkhepaj: why would i ? i just write the truth, nobody does care what you personally play not even your friends most of the time :P
but i still dont get it why all these collected infos are bad , just explain why are they bad
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Dark_art_: Sorry, I misunderstood you...

I don't have to explain anything but I'm sure you are able to look at the top most valuable public companies on western countrys...
you havent answered my question, why is that bad?
so someone makes a lot of money from it? why is that bad? some companies use the garbage or recycle waste , i cant see why that is bad at all
Post edited November 27, 2020 by Orkhepaj
Posted November 27, 2020
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Time4Tea: They can do whatever they want within the confines of their sandbox. It doesn't really matter, because I don't allow closed-source applications access to the rest of my computer.
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Orkhepaj: what if they are open-souced? do you check their code and then compare the hash codes to see you have the same program?
I use Linux and get most (if not all) of my non-game software (which is free/open-source) from my distro's repository. The repository is heavily 'curated' and yes, code is reviewed and audited by the eyes of many people who are more skilled in that area than myself. Yes, when a package is downloaded, a cryptographic code is checked, to make sure it hasn't been tampered with.
Post edited November 27, 2020 by Time4Tea
Posted November 27, 2020
low rated
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Orkhepaj: what if they are open-souced? do you check their code and then compare the hash codes to see you have the same program?
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Time4Tea: I use Linux and get most (if not all) of my non-game software (which is free/open-source) from their repository. The repository is heavily 'curated' and yes, code is reviewed and audited by the eyes of many people who are more skilled in that area than myself. Yes, when a package is downloaded, a cryptographic code is checked, to make sure it hasn't been tampered with.
then you still trust others to say the code is fine
Posted November 27, 2020
low rated
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Orpheus-GOG: Umm...really? New to the Internet or just too naive?

I honestly don't understand why you're so "shocked" about all this.
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Yepoleb: Oh come on, no reason to act like this. I did not fearmonger but gave a pretty balanced opinion about this.

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Orpheus-GOG: ALL clients do this. Every one of them. From $team to Epic to Uplay to Battle.net. That's why they exist: to keep track of EVERYTHING the user does.
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Yepoleb: Any source on this? I actually collected the data on this but you're just making claims based on presumptions.
I wasn't accusing you of fearmongering. Sorry if you misundertood what I said. Maybe I wasn't clear enough or maybe "shocked" was too strong. Again: my bad, sorry for the confusion.

And in regards to the second thing...the whole Internet is your source. I'm not going to do your homework and put link after link of things you can easily find doing a simple Google search, man.
Again, maybe it was a poor choice of words of mine to say "all"...but almost of all of them use some kind of telemetry. That's a fact. Again, if you're really that interested about it you can search for it a lil' bit and you'll find a bunch of smoking guns. Uplay, Battle.net...hell, $team even has the freakin' Steam Hardware Survey that blatantly scans your whole system and sends them all your hardware info!
If you really need "hard evidence" to believe they're all on board the data collection bandwagon then you truly are a really naive person.
Posted November 27, 2020
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Time4Tea: Not if you use a privacy-focused browser; block javascript from Google Analytics; and use a spy blocker.
As soon as you are connected with your account they know everything you are doing on the website, privacy-focused browser or not.
Posted November 27, 2020
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jhAtgog: One might argue that the term "for the general operational purposes of GOG GALAXY Application" does not really cover connecting the collected data with the user account. At least i would see it that way.
It's an enumeration, they collect X, Y, Z "and" your activities in the GOG GALAXY Application and on other platforms connected to your GOG account for the general operational purposes of GOG GALAXY Application.
Posted November 27, 2020
high rated
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Orpheus-GOG: And in regards to the second thing...the whole Internet is your source. I'm not going to do your homework and put link after link of things you can easily find doing a simple Google search, man.
I'm not going to continue the discussion if you continue in this demeaning manner.

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Orpheus-GOG: Again, if you're really that interested about it you can search for it a lil' bit and you'll find a bunch of smoking guns. Uplay, Battle.net...hell, $team even has the freakin' Steam Hardware Survey that blatantly scans your whole system and sends them all your hardware info!
I don't see this in black and white, collecting anonymized hardware data with explicit consent is perfectly fine to me. Steam even shows you exactly what is collected. This is way different from tracking every user action in the client, because it makes a huge difference if the data is collected with explicit consent and if it's anonymized or highly personalized.

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Orpheus-GOG: If you really need "hard evidence" to believe they're all on board the data collection bandwagon then you truly are a really naive person.
There's no doubt they all collect some kind of data. But I have not come across any evidence that they do it this extensively as GOG.
Posted November 27, 2020
high rated
It's been a while since insights-collector.gog.com was introduced (don't recall exactly how long ago, but a good few months for certain). The difference between using GOG-Galaxy and the site via browser is that in the latter case one can block it from running with uBlock or/and uMatrix, and the site still works just fine.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionTelemetry in GOG GALAXY 2.0(91 posts)(91 posts)
(91 posts)