IMHO the bottom line is that any such conspiracy theories are unprovable either way, so one either decides to use it or to not use it really it's that simple. Speculation about it only results in people being divided between both unprovable sides of the hypothesis coming together to argue about it and gouge each other's eyes out. What's the point? If someone is paranoid, they should just not use it and be happy in their choice, not fuel polarized debates that wont ever come to any solid conclusion either way, and are unlikely to change anyone else's already formed opinions. Kind of a pointless waste of time, but I suppose no worse than a lot of things we all do that are a waste of time. :)

Yes, please. More free stuff would be nice, and I would not mind more games to fit my gaming tastes. This is horrible!

Also, there was a sale for the past two weeks, plus, they never said there'd be a constant updating of games, we'll probably see them trickle in over time.

I don't think GOG will lose much since it's timed promo, not for good. Very small portion of people will manage to transfer and get their DRM-free copies, while majority of people will still need to buy if they miss the chance. The point is to increase GOG's population and make more people to stay here. When people realize advantages of GOG over Steam, they will surely be loyal and buy games here.

I would hesitate to call it a scam, but I am surprised people would even think that there is no data mining involved. I would even claim that many online vendors make much more profit solely based on crunching such data in various ways (not necessarily outright selling it but offering paid services not meant for us end-users to other companies), rather than selling products. This used to be kinda hidden knowledge in the circles of data scientists, and various computer science sub-disciplines that do measurement studies. But I'm pretty sure it has been made very obvious in the past decade thanks to all those data giants and their "free" services we all avail ourselves of.

But this doesn't have to hurt users in order to be profitable to companies. With GOG Connect you pretty much know what you are getting into. You should self-evaluate the value of the personal data you give away, compared to the value of service you receive.

it is most probably

I'm sure the second batch of connect games is hiding on the grassy knoll.

WRONG

It's hiding on the sound stage where they filmed the moon landing.

Fun fact: Nothing is really free. You always pay for it one way or the other. After all GOG is not a charity union. If they give a game for free to someone they have to increase prices for someone else in order to pay for that, kind of.

Well, many customers are not so evil in their mind in order to always suspect the worst and GOG never mentioned that they do collect data with Connect... All they said is that this is a fantastic opportunity for their customers (not for them). Yes, I know. Now that I write it it sounds incredibly naive.

I guess there might be some customers who actually trusted GOG to not misuse the information about their Steam account content. I mean, always blaming the customer saying "but you could have seen it coming" seems a bit unfair. Customers have a right to be naive, dumb, trusting, ... being less-than-average smart.

I guessed that much.

I haven't setup a profile on Steam, so it's not possible to set it to "private". GOG still was able to 'Connect' the games. Has anybody tried if a password change on Steam disables the GOG access?

From what I can tell I'm pretty sure they do use the GOG connect for analyzing data. I know someone that runs a company involved in IT and he explained to me a while ago how companies make their money off of 'free' promotions etc. Data has value, for marketing research and all kinds of statistical analysis. If they don't then they are missing out on an oppertunity to make money, they are a business after all. I'm not that worried about it in this case since but I think it would be naïve to think that they ignore all that data they can now access.

This connect business does not concern me, since I long ago abandoned my steam account and had/have no wishes to resurrect it.

One thing that I will point out though, is that no sooner had the bandwagon fallen over themselves to say how much of a great deal connect was , I received (as many of others must have) an email detailing changes to both privacy policies and the user agreement.

I have attached it for your reference. The link provided in the email used to point to a steam EULA. Now it points to Gogs own and can be found in caps in section 9.3 I am unaware if any changes have been made. Sorry, but I didn't watch it much as it did not concern me. To summarise,

1.There is no such thing as a free lunch
2.Whether you should feel worried about connect is up to you, see 1.

It is unlikely that gog will learn anything about you that steam didn't already know, in my opinion. What they do with it, well see 1.

Oh, definitely, you are absolutely right in that respect. Unfortunately it doesn't seem likely that businesses will ever make these things clear for the average folks, there is simply no incentive for them to. Putting up a "we may use your personal information" notice is all they are legally bound to do, and kids these days don't understand what privacy means anyway :)