well, be sure to block its access to net for a fair test

No they wouldn't, because not disclosing the data selling would be illegal, and GOG wouldn't do something illegal on purpose, because then they would get sued, and lose the lawsuit, and GOG's legal department knows that, and therefore they would always advise GOG against doing things that would cause lawsuits to happen.

And, some months ago, there has been at least one thread on this board, from a customer who said that he did un-sign up right away, only to have his email Inbox being spammed afterwards anyway which he attributed to the time when signed up for a GOG "giveaway," and for an email address that he didn't use for any purpose other than for signing up for a GOG "giveaway" (at least, that's what he claims).

And that's just the one that we happen to know about. Most people aren't going to make a GOG-specific email address, so when they start getting legions of spam emails, they will therefore have no idea the source from which it originates, and therefore they wouldn't post about it on this board, even if GOG's "giveaway" sign-up is the source of their new endless streams of spam.

Even if no one had ever posted about that happening, all customers would still be taking a major gamble every time they try the ploy of claiming a "giveaway" and then un-signing up immediately afterwards,in faith-based hopes that in this way they can avoid having their data being sold.

Maybe that works, sometimes, or maybe it doesn't. But it's always a gamble, and gambling is usually a bad idea.

But either way, whether that ploy works or not, IMO that's not worth the gamble, of risking receiving spam emails forever, in order to get a "free" game that doesn't cost much money to buy when it's on sale anyway. Should that happen, then that will have become a mighty expensive "free" game!

GOG "giveaways" used to be good when they were actually pure giveaways, with no dubious strings attached.

Now though, better to buy the games with money while they are on sale for low prices, and avoid accepting GOG's "giveaways."

I, on the other hand, didn't uncheck that dreaded box in months (used to do that immediately, but once I forgot and then decided to not care anymore), and I'm yet to see any spam in my mailbox.

Anyway, from what description says, it should be only adverts from GOG (but "tailored", whatever that means) and not some any random products. Now, when I think of it, I occasionally get those e-mails saying something like: "Oh, so cool you bought XXXX, here are the next titles you may like: <some terribly inaccurate suggestions>", so I guess this might be it.

That's stunningly naive. The "do not call" list in the U.S., for example...it's illegal to call anyone on it without good reason, and yet companies do it constantly. Companies sell data all the time, legal or not. That's stunningly paranoid and irrational.

Does "login with Google" always there or does it start with the summer sale?

First time I loaded the game up without an internet connection I had problems with saving, couldn't save manually and when the game attempted to autosave it went Into a loop, had to Alt+F4. I'll chalk this up as a bug. Up to that point I could play the game though.
Second time, after removing the now seemingly corrupted save folder, everything worked like it should.

I did that yesterday at 3am and I could very well be at fault for bugging the game out the first time, I was pretty tired. Insomnia sucks. xD

Now after a couple hours of sleep I'll reinstall the game and see if there's any issues.
But I think you're right and some files from the prior 'Steam installation' borked something.

Thank you, Games Farm, Kalypso and GOG! :)

It was there before the Summer sale, but it is quite recent. Less than a month, I think.

That's the login popup window I've seen for a long time now afaik. I don't even recall what the old one looked like or when they changed it haha.

I just fill the first 2 fields and click LOG IN NOW. If you fail the login 2 or more times, the next time you try on a different day, you may get the extra step for the picture verification (forgot what it was called).
.
Edit:
Hehe, ariaspi beat me to it and with a better answer. :)

I thought the changes occured long ago, but then again, my memory isn't what it used to be.:(
.

I assume this must be the case. I fired Shadows Awakening and used its save function today with my wireless adapter disabled (so no internet for this PC) and didn't have any issues.

Sachys and you must have faced some sort of technical mishap, which might be because of Steam interference indeed. I don't have this game in any other platform and my Gog installation worked as expected.

DID you block its ability to connect though? - THAT is the important thing here.
IF it requires a connection when its available... well...

Hi Sachys,

I've noticed something with a few games I've uninstalled and even after running Norton Utilities to clean up. It seems some leave behind registry entries. So I've had to manually clean and/or delete these entries.

Deleting/editing registry entries can be scary lol. But you may want to at least look and see after uninstalling (and before reinstalling) to see if any entries are still left.

Recently I had to reinstall a game (GOG version) of FATE I believe, but I found I still had the same exact issue after I reinstalled it. After a few failed attempts, I ended up looking into the registry and found some entries in a few (like 3 or 4) locations and deleted them manually. I did so cause the game was no longer installed, so no reason they should be there. Each pointed to fate.exe in the formerly installed folder. Which didn't make sense to me.

Then after reinstalling it clean, the issue was finally gone. To add some context, I had added some mods, but it seemed something in one of the mods was causing the issue and may have remained in the registry even after removing it and even after uninstalling the game.

I don't know if this will be of help. Anyway, you may want to at least check ( even if not editing) and see if there are any entries to connect to a site after you uninstall. I wonder if the GOG version is a modified version of the Steam version and maybe because old entries are left in from a previous install, it's maybe now trying to validate it?

But I'm obviously no expert, so this is just purely a guess since I've been in the registry quite a few times lol.

This is important. I am sometimes using internet behind a captive portal (login page to access the internet, like those found in hotels and some public spaces) and many programs freak out when they detect a connection is present but cannot reach whatever they want from the internet. Mostly to auto-update is my guess.
Pretty much the same as disconnect the input WAN/fibre cable from your router, Windows will have a "limited connection" icon.

Thanks GOG!

Indeed. I may be wrong, but I don't seem to recall any case where a game was reported as having problems when it couldn't connect because the computer had no connections available but worked when a connection was available but it was blocked from using it, but either in both cases or, quite a number of times, only in the latter one, so any testing should be done like that, on a connected computer but with the game blocked through firewall, and preferably one that prompts, therefore introducing a delay, not just a hard deny through rule.

I can't test it on this computer, but it was on my wishlist, so I grabbed it. As for the "trusted partners", pretty sure that this is a long term thing, allowing Google, Facebook and so on to use data from GOG to add more detail to the profile they build for you, so the effects are likely to be seen on those sites, and anywhere where they control the ads (so in most places in case of Google), not something that's likely to result in short-term e-mail spam.
But, either way, the saying is that if you're not paying for the product, you are the product, right? And that tends to be the case, and so be it... In fact, since we're bombarded with ads and get served content determined by algorithms we can't control anyway, it may well be a problem if you share the computer, as that may lead to things showing up for someone else that you don't want them to know about you, but if you don't, or if you don't want to hide any of what you do on-line on that computer from whoever you share it with, then I'd consider it even preferable to have those things tailored, related to sites you frequent and trust, instead of who knows what crap that the advertisers want to target you with.

I'd recommend skipping this sale... and all others.