As others have said, you should have them move that button and align it to the left inline with the drop down boxes. It looks very out of place to the rest of the options.
That not what I said... at all.

Hi elcook. Nice of you to warn us about this new 'feature'. But I very strongly suggest that you change the default setting to "only me". That would reduce the number of disgruntled customers and also the number of bad surprises for users who don't read announcements regularly. New features, especially ones concerning the sensitive topic of privacy and personal data, should ALWAYS be opt-in!

If you want to give your users the option to Facebookify their GOG-account, that's fine for those who want to. But don't make it the default. The default setting should always be: leave everything as it was, before this new 'feature' was introduced. It's really easy for you to select the least invasive default setting. There is NO technical reason to choose anything else that 'off' as the default for any new feature like this. So please, don't choose "everyone" or "friends only" as default!

must be a misunderstanding from my side then.. I always thought that american laws always saw contractual terms as superceeding domestic laws...
or simply "terms" > laws

wheras here for us, it's more like laws > terms, but again, that means nothing, if legal juridiction is always set anywhere else than in company's homeground's courts...

inb4 GOG adds a new "sign in"/"log in" GOG's website (and new account) using your FB account, as (too) many websites do nowadays :)
(would be a good legal way to merge their user database with fb, because of the portion of users who would come through this... dragging in every previous users who didnt sign up through such method anyway)
i can even safely bet they already thought about it, and if any tech manpower was invested recently in the whole service's backbone and database tinkering, it may had been towards such goal

It's not.
I work for an IT company and we're currently dealing with this. If put to use, it's actually a pretty sharp sword. Rules are strict and fines are not pocket money, even for larger companies.

Of course the big question mark is in the "if". How many loopholes that thing has when it comes to avoiding data usage reporting and proving abuse we'll see when it comes to the first clashes before court.

My biggest worry is that it will be abused by shrewd lawyers to mass-send fined adhortatory/cease-and-desist letters - some thing that is sadly rampant in Germany.

I only have firsthand knowledge for the organization where I currently work, but there at least, things have improved significantly because of the GDPR; they weren't even all that bad on the privacy-front - just... careless. But now most unnecessary data-collection has ceased, there's processes to remove collected data after it's no longer necessary, and even things like analytics usage on its numerous web properties is being severely restrained (which up until recently wasn't even possible; thank the GDPR for making google analytics introduce the option to set limits to data retention (and yes, google is of course being sneaky and trying to make the setting meaningless, but since the organisation which is using it now has awareness, they actually configured it correctly))

Things won't become perfect overnight (exhibit A: gog), but overall the GDPR is having a massive positive effect, and I can only see things getting even better in the years to come.

well, considering big GAFAM comapnies's lawyers and hobbyists had been actively "helping" senators/parliament's members to design this law, you can safely bet they already prepared the much needed loopholes...

not for such loopholes to be used bu smaller clueless companies, but only for them biggest ones solely

(call me sceptical or paranoid... last 10 years of digital-related's law tinkering har proven me right so far)

I think something else a lot of people are ignoring or forgetting is that things like game activity. game time, achievements, won't be tracked outside of Galaxy. So if you don't use Galaxy your profile is going to be pretty blank most likely anyway (of course we won't know for sure until it is released) but most things will probably be tied to Galaxy activity because it's pretty much impossible to track stuff without it.

beware, though... GDPR's rules about data collecting, retention and analytics will obviously be tempered by already-existing legislation regarding anti-terrorism (which were already forcing 3 years of data retention on many online services, in my country at least)

i am very impatient/eager to see how far the good intents of GDPR are going, vs how far the anti-terrorism excuse will be used and abused by people wanting to bypass GDPR (but, you know... we are FORCED To collet and keep all those datas in case you need it against meanies, you know.. o, it's a cost for us to do that for free, and as data is here now, why couldnt we use it already ?)
dont laugh, i already heard such argument from some local company manager here
well, you pointed at a TOS article that implied such things (collecting activities, game time tracking etc) seemed mandatory and required for GOG to be able to keep providing its services in good conditions (here i'm not puting the blame on you, you didnt write this article of the TOS, you just lit a spotlight upon it, that's all... okay ?)

and yes, obviously, many of those features require galaxy to be collected and generated...

which already raised both my concern and worry abouy Galaxy soon becoming less than optional, or that some galaxy-light edition would be mandatory to install and run for us to just play our games

for me, those new "social features" and "user profile" and all new "we are all happy friends family together" madness seems to be nothing more than a trojan horse to try again to make galaxy mandatory, thus really wanting to compete with steam on its worse (and mostly unwanted) side

Because if i want social BS, useless meaningless friendmaking, getting spied upon in what i buy/play.like and be forced to install a software to be able to use my games... why the hell would i go to all the trouble of doing it on GOG with games often behind in term of updates, fixes, or with missing features (or entire platform's version/port) ?
Could rather go steam already :)

Well, i think abt enough has been said abt this issue already. While it's definitely true more can be done to make the planned rollout better, i still want to thk GOG for giving us the heads up before implementing any changes.

The 1st thing which i'm sure pretty much everyone here wld agree is that thread shd be STICKIED & made BOLD as well as sent to EVERY GOG user account's email BEFORE any changes is made. This wld help mitigate any possible backlash regarding change in privacy on their account/profiles. We here are lucky to see this in the thread but not everyone logins to the forum & MANY will not even know abt it till the changes are already implemented & by then it wld be too late.

The next thing of cos is to work on the implementation details, i believe almost all can agree there are lots of room for improvement & tweaking before it's rollout & GOG wld do well to take into account the majority views before finalising the change. Personally, i'll for keeping status quo (aka setting default to 'only me' 1st) as this will have minimum impact on the users. If GOG decides against this then @ least give the users enough time & warning to change their settings 1st.

Lastly, i want to thk all who contributed positively to this discussion here. Although i do feel we all can be more tolerant of each opinions, i also feel we shd try to give constructive criticisms & avoid overly negative comments as they do not help make the forums a generally welcomed place especially 4 the newbies. I just hope that we all can continue to help make this forum (as well as GOG) a nice place for all of us to buy our DRM-free games while enjoying taking part in active discussions with fellow GOGers. Peace all. ^_^V

Thanks.
Any info if there will be an option to set your online status to invisible?

That would mean info about me is visible to everyone just because of using the friend feature.
Please reconsider this. It is no ones business to know my number of games, achievements etc, just because they visit the profile of one of my friends.

I refer you to my previous response to you. Unfortunately we appear to be going in circles.

Yes, you mentioned it, unfortunately other things you say seem to contradict it.

I use non of those, so I guess the joke's on you.

Can I say I like this post, or would that be deeply immoral? (like Facebook).

I'm also extra frustrated with them this week, despite not being a user, because the dumbasses in charge where I work has in their infinite wisdom, simultaneous with serious hearings in the US, decided to implement Workplace by Facebook for internal (lol) communication. This in a public institution that needs to preserve sensitive information and protect against industrial espionage. It's so unfathomable dumb and I've let them know about it in no uncertain terms, both before and now, but it's probably too late now :(

So you admit to being aware that the risk of any user experiencing even the slightest problems because of these settings are miniscule and that it comes down to "I don't wanna" rather than "I'll suffer because of that"?

That's what I mean by saying this problem is made out to be much more serious than it really is. In reality the risk of these settings impacting user negatively is very small.

I wonder if you cut the part of me saying I don't understand the scale of panic on purpose.
I understand the desire to keep everything private without the user's explicit consent. I don't understand pretending it's the most important problem the Internet has faced.

And if you think people are not overreacting, may I quote you: I never referred to you specifically in this paragraph, so I guess the joke's not on me after all.

I'm done here, because I've already said everything I wanted to say. If you're still feeling I'm contradicting myself, so be it, because I have neither time nor willingness to convince you. Have a great day!

I cut it out because I already responded to that above in the very same post.

It is the most important problem the Internet has faced. This here is just a very small part of that grand problem. But rules that should apply to that issue everywhere should apply here as well, the magnitude of the problem in the particular instance notwithstanding. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

I've no idea what this has to do with "overreacting". You didn't refer to me, but you asked about that hypothetical in some last ditch hopeless effort to prove your point by insinuating hypocrisy in a discussion with me. I answered, for myself. SImple as that, no overreaction.