Do you see an edit note on that post? No. Getting triggered over literally nothing.

I'm not missing any point here. They give you a choice: don't claim freebies (which is very unlikely for someone to do considering the mess of an economy) or give them legal "consent" to steal my data.

Yes, they're stealing it. Sure, they have LEGAL "consent" but only because they used scumbag lawyerese to get it.

Don't call it a freebie or a giveaway if you're going to covertly opt a person in to legal "consent" (which is bullcrap) to steal a person's data.

Anonymous are edgy (and cringey) activists. I'm just a regular guy who doesn't appreciate being screwed by a corporation that originally built itself up as a company dedicated to preserving games and gamers' rights.

Nope, not that it makes any difference in this case.

Yeah, whatever.
I said all there is to say in that regard.
Makes no sense to repeat myself ad nauseam, when talking to a wall.

Let me try too. Let’s say that someone appears in front of your house and knocks at your door. You open and he says: “I’ve got this X item here (the game). If you want it, I would like to take some items from your house and I’ll share them with some friends of mine. What say you?”. You can answer YES or NO, it's your choice. Maybe you can see it as some sort of an exchange, [edit], but it's definitely not stealing.

Edit: instead of the item being totally free

Like I said, you're calling me out for something I didn't do.

I'm not bullying or namecalling but apparently some folks here are insisting I am, even making up lies about me supposedly targeting them with a post edit or whatever. My only real anger here is directed at a policy with GOG, not with anyone in specific (whether in the community or with GOG employees). Just figured I'd clarify that so you, and everyone else here, know what my intentions are with this post.

It's fine if you personally don't care, I'm not telling you that you have to. That doesn't mean all of us have to take it lying down. Some of us care about our rights and freedoms online. Gaming is supposed to be an escape, a way to de-stress, but some companies have taken it upon themselves to exploit us gamers for a bit of extra cash on the side.

I'm sorry but a customer should not have to pore through walls and walls of legal jargon just to know whether or not they're getting screwed.

Again, as I mentioned in my original post, the reason this bugs me so much with GOG specifically is because of who GOG always claimed to be. They made their rise because they always talked about gamers' rights and freedoms with DRM-free. I find it particularly malicious that they've gone and done the direct opposite of what they always claimed to be, hiding their actions behind legalese ToS agreements (seriously, we need a better system than garbage ToS and Privacy Policy agreements). I hold GOG to a higher standard than their competition because they were once so dedicated to fighting the garbage practices of the modern games industry, so when their biggest competitor goes and does the consumer-friendly thing while GOG does the anti-consumer thing, yes: I take issue with that.

It's still bottom-of-the-barrel levels of scumbag territory to do that. What I own belongs to ME and I should not be pressured to give legal consent to data theft practices just because "b-but you claimed the free game!!"

As I said in the reply above, GOG always claimed to be the consumer-friendly, pro-ownership, pro-freedom platform. As such, I (like everyone else) have the right to hold them to a higher standard than their peers. When their biggest competitor, THE service that created the DRM scam within PC gaming, is the one doing the morally right thing by giving customers the option to fully customize (or even opt out of) data collection, yet the allegedly pro-consumer "freedom" platform forcefully opts you in if you claim anything free, there's a major issue there.

I really don't see how people are okay with that, or how people can defend that. Only a corporate lawyer should be defending it because this sort of garbage, it negatively impacts all of us except GOG and malware corpos like Google and Meta.

https://i.imgur.com/Sw93KEH.png

We (GOG): Send you marketing emails and send some of your data to partner companies
You (customer): Get a game

Alternative arrangements do however exist, such as:

We (GOG): Get currency from you
You (customer): Get a game

Both are Capitalist options. Pick one.

Tell that to, I dunno, Steam? Epic? Neither of those inherently force you to opt in to claim freebies.

Steam and Epic are a whole other thing, and don't need to perform acts of desperation to appease partners.
GOG are on a much lower level of success than them.

None of us like what they are doing, but it is what it is, and you can always opt out or avoid. I guess it depends on your own level of desperation to get a free game.

And at least they are open about it I guess, and didn't just do it secretly. And it could always be worse than what it is ... we can at least deselect the checkbox immediately ... and even do that with a script automatically.

And you think your data isn't being mined on Epic?

My point isn't to compare services, but to compare ethics. If GOG, as the allegedly pro-consumer, pro-ownership, pro-freedom platform, is now doing megacorp level tactics while their competitors aren't, there's a problem.

I've already reduced my purchases on GOG for a few other issues they've had (some of which I had even when I was basically a GOG fanboy and are still unresolved), this sort of thing only makes me want to reduce it further. If more people here put their foot down like they did with the Hitman fiasco a few years back, this wouldn't be a problem.

I refuse to justify or play devil's advocate with this sort of thing. They sell our data using underhanded tactics; just because they do make it a bit more open than some companies, that doesn't make it okay.

Could you at least try to discuss in good faith? It's bad enough you threw accusations my way, there's no point in using "gotchas" in the discussion.

I didn't say Epic and Steam don't harvest your data. I said that they don't opt you in to the data collection by claiming freebies. There's specifically an option to share your data with the developer/publisher but it's opt-in, rather than opt-out. As for Steam, they give you an entire page to select what (if any) data you share with them. That should be *GOG* having a customization page for data collection. It should be the platform that is supposed to be all about the customer, their rights and their freedoms, as GOG always claimed to be.

That is, ultimately, the point of what I'm saying here. It's disgusting that GOG pretends to be so pro-consumer yet does shady, underhanded tactics to get you to legally opt into them stealing and selling your data. I wouldn't even be mad if they had data collection opt-out by default if only they had a customization page like that and didn't automatically opt you back in any time you claim a freebie.

It's obvious you won't listen to good reason. All I'm hearing is a very entitled and greedy person without an ounce of personal responsibility.

I'm through with this waste of time.

Actually, it is indeed a huge issue, because there is no guarantee that one's data won't be sold, if one is to take a gamble on that process described in the quoted text.

In fact, at least one poster on this board has claimed that his data was sold despite him having done exactly what you said; he says he started to receive junk email at an email address which he only ever used for the purpose of signing up to GOG "giveaways," and nothing else.

But most people are not going to bother to make a GOG-specific email address solely for the purpose of claiming GOG "giveaways."

So this problem could very well be much more widespread than we currently know about, since if it has happened to many other people, most of them would never have any way to trace back the source of their incoming junk mail spam to claiming GOG "giveaways," and they would never think of GOG as being the source, even if that is happening a lot.

And yet, here I am (once again) with the complete opposite experience.

You may remember me - I think, I replied to similar posts of yours at least twice, already.

How about, instead of referencing "one poster on this board [who] has claimed that his data was sold" (how exactly does this mysterious poster know that, btw?), you post something of your own?

You know: first hand experience.

Oh, and: if that mysterious poster claims, he "started to receive junk email at an email address which he only ever used for the purpose of signing up to GOG "giveaways," and nothing else", then the probability is pretty damn high, that that mysterious poster simply forgot to unsubscribe from the notifications.

You know: the ONE thing one has to do, each time, one claims a freebie.