A critical look at the terms of service of Steam.

1. Are players getting
screwed?
The privacy policy and terms of service of PC game platform Steam.

2. Most of us don’t read the privacy
policies and terms of service of
the online platforms we use for
good reason.
Image: (Aguado, 2011)

3. It’s estimated it would take you 244
hours to read the privacy policies
for all the websites you visit in a year
(McDonald & Cranor, 2008, p. 563).
They’re time consuming.
Image: (Wickramanayaka, 2014)

4. Research has found that even experts
in law struggle to interpret privacy
policies (Reidenberg et al., 2015).
And they’re confusing.
Image: (CollegeDegrees360, 2012)

5. Still, they’re worth our attention as these
policies often diminish the rights of
users.

6. To illustrate, let’s explore the policies of
the popular online service Steam.
We’ll look at how these policies
effect ownership and privacy,
and the unfairness of Steam’s
dispute resolution clauses.
Image: (Kit, 2007)

7. But first …

8. Steam?

9. Steam is an online PC gaming and
social network platform owned by the
software company Valve.
Image: Screenshot http://store.steampowered.com/, 2016
It has over 125 million users worldwide
(Saed, 2015).

10. Steam has faced its share of
controversy.

11. Multiple hacks have
exposed the personal
information of its users
(Good, 2011; Grill, 2015).
Image: (The Preiser Project, 2014)

12. And recently Valve was sued by a
consumer group alleging Steam’s
policies violated the rights of
consumers (Nutt, 2015).
Image: (Gratz, 2006)

13. Image: Screenshot http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/, 2016
On Steam you can:
• Access, play and review games
• Share your videos and artwork
• Create and share game content
• Join discussion boards and chat in-game

14. To create a Steam account you must
agree to Steam’s Subscriber Agreement
& Privacy Policy.

15. Steam &
Ownership

16. You may think you buy games on Steam, but
that’s not entirely accurate.
What you buy are subscriptions to games
(Valve, 2016).

17. If you or Valve cancel your account, these
subscriptions end without refund and
you are no longer allowed to play your
games (Valve, 2016).

18. Valve can cancel your account if you break
the terms of the Subscriber Agreement or
Steam’s rules of conduct, which Valve can
change whenever they want (Valve, 2016).
Image: (Indruch, 2009)

19. While it’s likely digital content providers set
these restrictions to protect against
piracy (Wong, 2013, p. 733) …

20. … they effectively hold valuable content to
ransom, pressuring us to continue using their
services and accepting the terms they set.
Image: (James, 2013)

21. We do own some content on Steam.
The content we create and make
public on social media, such as
reviews, videos and artworks, are
our intellectual property.
Image: Screenshot http://steamcommunity.com/?subsection=images, 2016

22. The agreement grants Valve many of the
powers of a copyright owner over our
content, such as being free to modify it
and create derivative works that solely
belong to them (Valve, 2016).
Image: (Paz, 2010)

23. Tech companies and users are co-creators of
social media sites (Schumann, von Wangenheim, & Groene, 2014, p. 66) …
If users didn’t add content to Steam’s
community section, who would visit it?
Image: (Berge, 2010)

24. … yet we seem to come out second-best
in the relationship.

25. When we agree to Steam’s terms we
lose control over content we own
and Gain no property rights over the
content we spend money on.

26. Steam & Privacy

27. Valve collects from Steam users
Anonymous Data & Personally
Identifiable Information.

28. Anonymous data supposedly can’t
identify you. It can include your browsing
history, purchase history, gender and postal
code.
Image: (überBusy, 2006)

29. Valve can share this data with anyone
(Valve, 2015) because it isn’t considered a
threat to privacy …

30. … even though there are methods that
exist that can link this data back to
individuals (Marwick & boyd, 2014, p. 1053; Narayanan
& Shmatikov, 2010, p. 25).

31. It collects this data in order to study
consumer habits (Valve, 2015).
Many companies do this so they can
personalise their services and create
targeted advertising (Brown & Muchira, 2004).
Image: (Vance, 2007)
Valve does not specify or give us
options over what anonymous data
is collected from us.

32. Basically, we’re being profiled
in ways we can’t see or control
based on online behaviour that
may not reflect who we are
(van Wel & Royakkers, 2004, p. 133).
Image: (Lund, 2007)

33. Personally identifiable information
is information volunteered by users “that can
be used to uniquely identify a user such as
name, address or credit card number” (Valve, 2015).
Image: (Ivanushkin, 2009)

34. It’s not mentioned how long Valve
keeps this information.
Image: (Cholet, 2011)
You can ask for it to be removed
from Valve’s records …

35. … but the request can be denied
for vague various reasons such as if
the request is deemed “extremely
impractical” (Valve, 2015).
Image: (fdecomite, 2012)

36. Government surveillance requests for
customer data from tech companies is
on the rise (Schechner, 2016) …

37. Valve may release our information to
authorities “to comply with court orders
or laws”(Valve, 2015).
It makes no promises to resist such
requests or to notify users when they
occur.

38. When we’re vulnerable to
scrutiny, it changes the way
we act (Introna, 1997, p. 268).
Image: (ep_jhu, 2010)

39. Online surveillance concerns have seen
22% of American internet users
change their online behaviour
(Rainie & Madden, 2015).

40. When we use Steam, we compromise
our privacy, threatening our ability
to define our actions and ourselves.

41. Dispute
Resolution

42. The subscriber agreement
attempts to dictate what legal
measures we can take against
Valve, such as insisting we forgo
the right to a trial in court (Valve, 2016).
Image: (brainflakes., 2008)

43. These terms might not apply in some
countries (Valve, 2016). Their inclusion in the
agreement makes it unclear what a
user’s legal rights are …
Image: (Habel, 2007)

44. … potentially discouraging users
from defending themselves with
appropriate legal action (Loos & Luzak, 2016, p. 85).

45. Conclusion

46. Many of us are happy to exchange
our personal information and user
content for a great online service
(Schumann, von Wangenheim, & Groene, 2014, p. 70).
Image: (Magal, 2011)
But is it fair that we’re forced
to relinquish so much control
in these exchanges?

47. It’s in a company’s economic interest
to have control over our data and content
but so is maintaining the trust of their
customers (Peacock, 2014, p. 7; Dean, Payne, & Landry, 2016, p. 500).

48. Expressing our concerns to tech companies can
help us regain power over our information and
content …
Image: (kunkelstein, 2007)

49. … And so can better legislation. In Steam’s
policies you’ll notice that European Union
users are given greater consideration.
This is because the EU has stricter laws
governing privacy and consumer rights
(Bogdan, 2015; Curtis, 2016).
Image: (Allen, 2010)

50. Online terms of service are “exploitative,
unjust, unavoidable” and one-sided
(Peacock, 2014, p. 7).
But that can change.

51. Learn more about online privacy and
ownership issues:
Online Privacy: Using the Internet Safely
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Me and My Shadow

52. References
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54. Images
Aguado, A. G. (2011, November 16). New glasses [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/aFcWS8
Berge, C-H. (2010, June 5). Shaking hands [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/87KMxT
Allen, R. (2010, March 13). Themis [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/7LxCKN
brainflakes.. (2008, July 19). Arms crossed [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/5f9etL
Cholet, D. (2011, January 20). Calendar* [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/9bUbH3
CollegeDegrees360. (2012, July 12). Confused [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/cEJMpW
ep_jhu. (2010, April 18). Surveillance [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/7VibC7
fdecomite. (2012, July 27). Signs [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/cFgqPG
Gratz, J. (2006). Courtroom one gavel [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/bkUna
Habel, C. (2007, July 8). let the day begin [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/2BND3v
Indruch, L. (2009, April 4). broken screen [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/6df6Wx
Ivanushkin, E. (2009, July 12). Credit card [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/6Eh3zg
James, S. (2013, June 14). chain [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/eMHinV
Kit. (2007, August 19). The worlds greatest detective [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/2NJxPz
kunkelstein. (2007, November 28). Anger. [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/4bMzdr
Lund, G. (2007, February 11). Mirror [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/5VFkBX
Magal, A. (2011, April 22). Vintage cash register [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/9K6tTu
Paz, J. (2010, February 2). Chocolate cake [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/7AuNkn

55. The Preiser Project. (2014, January 23). Hacker [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/jrrmeP
überBusy. (2006, July 13). hiding [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/hGS8R
Vance, J. (2007, July 1). Target [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/27szGU
Wickramanayaka, U. (2014). time [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/rs7QVi
Licenses
The following images were used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
2.0 Generic license: Anger., Arms crossed, broken screen, chain, Chocolate cake, hiding,
let the day begin, Mirror, New glasses, Surveillance, The worlds greatest detective,
Themis, timeTarget, Vintage cash register.
The following images were used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
Generic license: Confused, Credit card.
The following images were used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
license: Calendar*, Hacker, Signs.
This presentation has been created as part of an assignment for the unit NET303, provided
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