I just got an unsolicited Steam Privacy Policy Update email from noreply@steampowered.com. Looking at source and headers, I believe it's genuine. I have never signed up for anything on Steam's site. I am not, nor have I ever been a Steam customer. How the hell did they even get my email address? (well, I guess I don't hide it very well, but I never gave it directly to them) I can't even complain to Steam about it. Not only does the email not have an opt-out button (in violation of several nations' laws), but I can't contact Steam *unless I create an account there*.

Sorry for bringing this up here, but I'm not about to create a Steam account just so I can complain that I don't have a Steam account but yet am apparently in their email database. Does anybody have a way of contacting them that doesn't involve me getting a Steam account? I guess I'll just have to forward it to spam@uce.gov and be done with it. I don't think that will get my email out of their databases, though.

Edit: I have gone ahead and forwarded the email to the FTC, for all the good that will do.

Does it ask for any kind of login or bank account info? May be a fake sent out to people to get their bank / steam login details.

What a coincidence.
Just the other day I got a letter in the mail telling me I may already be a millionaire.

Please post the email headers. Be sure to remove your email address.

If I just threw you, please mention what email service you're using and I or someone else can help you with that.

The header at least makes it appear to have been sent from valve/steam:

Received: from smtp12.steampowered.com (smtp12.steampowered.com. [208.64.202.54])
...
Received: from [208.64.202.21] (helo=valvesoftware.com)
by smtp12.steampowered.com with smtp (Exim 4.82)
(envelope-from <noreply@steampowered.com>)
id 1fMRsF-0007y3-WF

All links and remote content within the message direct to valve/steam (the image locations are weird, but the steam store itself uses the same urls). This does not appear to be a phishing email. That's what I meant when I said "Looking at the source and headers, I believe it's genuine".

I'd request a password reset for the Steam account. If it works, you now have a Steam account with hopefully some free games*. If you don't want it, change the email address to something random that wouldn't actually exist.

* This might be illegal, I dunno lol

I doubt that would work as you have to access the new account and approve the change.

Maybe someone used your email address without permission and created a steam account with it? Or have a very similar email-address to yours and by some glitch in the matrix, the email meant for him was sent to you?

If that's the case, maybe one of those disposable email services would work?

Yeah, that was the original idea.

Of course, some services don't accept disposable email addresses, so it might not work either.

Possible, but highly unlikely. This is the only email from Steam I've ever gotten, to my knowledge. Of course if I had someone else's email account, and was using it for that purpose, I would likely intercept any email during my time of activity. I'm sure Steam sends tons of spam to all of its customers very frequently and unpredictably, though. Of course an easy way around that would be to have a program check mail frequently and auto-delete/forward them. Maybe this is a symptom of somebody's server malfunctioning. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Edit: According to Google, at least, my email account has not been accessed by anyone but me (and my damn phone) for a long, long time. Thanks for scaring me, Shadowstalker16! Probably about time I changed my passwords, anyway.

The fact is, I don't even want to try to access Steam. I just want to send a complaint to somebody there, and be done with it.

Everyone is a Steam customer. Some just don't know it yet.

Sorry, no can do. Valve is not a place where actual people are working or even reply to emails. It's a server farm.

So saith Lord Gaben in the great book of T&C. The barbarians in the northern kingdom of GOG were the only ones still unconquered, hiding behind the vast mountain ranges of DRM-free, where no invaders could thread.