Posted June 25, 2019
So, the idea of Galaxy 2.0 is great, but i kinda can't get on board in ''putting all my eggs in one basket'' from a data sharing, data aggregation and privacy standpoint. For instance, i don't use facebook nor whatsapp, i rather go with coms apps that are totally open source and end to end encrypted, innocently believing that almost no data can be collected, aggregated and used.
Now, from what i read about Galaxy 2.0, we have well meant promises of data minimalism and that this entire endevour is as privacy minded as one can expect from GOG. Still, GOG is in the process of aggregating pretty much all of the gaming related online lifes of interested users in one app and service. All games owned, play times, achievements, friends lists, chat messages, pretty much all of it. The problem is not that there will be much of a difference of GOG knowing what you play and how, with whom etc. VS Ubisoft or Valve and the like. It's that one company has everything aggregated.
The question thus is; what parts of the data flows from all different game company's backends to Galaxy 2.0 are handled purely locally, not flowing through GOG's own servers and/or being analyzed by GOG in the Galaxy 2.0 local instance and then synced with GOG servers?
I am not trying to hate on the general idea of Galaxy 2.0, i am just trying to meticulously fathom how Galaxy 2.0 will actually work and whether i am ok with the convenience vs privacy tradeoff.
Ideally (especially since Galaxy is a pure desktop client), Galaxy 2.0 was totally open source so the community could audit it, and was handling everything that is not GOG related locally, including login and all polling from the various 3rd party clients it integrates under one roof.
Since Galaxy 2.0 does not need 3rd party clients running in the background when not actively playing a 3rd party client game, i assume that Galaxy 2.0 is directly hooking into those clients services via special apis provided by those 3rd parties. Is this purely handled locally, or is this being done through GOG's own server infrastructure and then fed to my local Galaxy 2.0 client?
I encourage the devs to lay out in fine detail how the various "data flows" (login details, chat messages, gametime played, achievements etc.) are being handled. I assume i won't get my dream answer, but i feel that if GOG really means business concerning privacy, they should not shy away from laying it bare and open, so we customers can my a well informed decision whether we want to use what Galaxy 2.0 promises. Cheers
Now, from what i read about Galaxy 2.0, we have well meant promises of data minimalism and that this entire endevour is as privacy minded as one can expect from GOG. Still, GOG is in the process of aggregating pretty much all of the gaming related online lifes of interested users in one app and service. All games owned, play times, achievements, friends lists, chat messages, pretty much all of it. The problem is not that there will be much of a difference of GOG knowing what you play and how, with whom etc. VS Ubisoft or Valve and the like. It's that one company has everything aggregated.
The question thus is; what parts of the data flows from all different game company's backends to Galaxy 2.0 are handled purely locally, not flowing through GOG's own servers and/or being analyzed by GOG in the Galaxy 2.0 local instance and then synced with GOG servers?
I am not trying to hate on the general idea of Galaxy 2.0, i am just trying to meticulously fathom how Galaxy 2.0 will actually work and whether i am ok with the convenience vs privacy tradeoff.
Ideally (especially since Galaxy is a pure desktop client), Galaxy 2.0 was totally open source so the community could audit it, and was handling everything that is not GOG related locally, including login and all polling from the various 3rd party clients it integrates under one roof.
Since Galaxy 2.0 does not need 3rd party clients running in the background when not actively playing a 3rd party client game, i assume that Galaxy 2.0 is directly hooking into those clients services via special apis provided by those 3rd parties. Is this purely handled locally, or is this being done through GOG's own server infrastructure and then fed to my local Galaxy 2.0 client?
I encourage the devs to lay out in fine detail how the various "data flows" (login details, chat messages, gametime played, achievements etc.) are being handled. I assume i won't get my dream answer, but i feel that if GOG really means business concerning privacy, they should not shy away from laying it bare and open, so we customers can my a well informed decision whether we want to use what Galaxy 2.0 promises. Cheers