We aren't putting literal Spyware into your computer. We are just putting the functional equivalent of spyware into your computer through your video game.
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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“The Privacy Policy identifies the data activities that may be collected but this does not mean that every example is collected in each game or service.”
That’s pretty vague. is this statement supposed to make the community feel better?
That's exactly how it works with any other privacy policy you will find (except when the service is spun out in a subsidiary like Meta > WhatsApp LLC where WhatsApp has its own privacy policy). Look at Ubisoft's privacy policy: https://www.ubisoft.com/legal/documents/privacypolicy/en-INTL Ist's the same. Or worse maybe? They are more clear in their language on why and where the data gets collected. That's where Take-Two could have done a better Job.
Or EA: https://www.ea.com/legal/privacy-and-cookie-policy?setLocale=en-US
Same shit. Not saying that I like it, but this is not new at all. Take-Two is not a suddenly a spy company that installs spyware. Privacy policies have been like this for years but it seems some people currently woke up to reading or caring about privacy policies for the first time in their life.
The issue is that the privacy policy changed on an old game people bought long ago, and now they're not allowed to play the game without agreeing to the changes.
The privacy policy changed not explicitly for the game. It is possible the data collection behaviour has always been like that and they only now have rewritten it to comply with current laws. The way its written is common to comply with EU law (what in detail may be collected and for what purpose).
Nothing changed for anyone that bought the game and only plays the game exclusively (eg. on Steam).
"We steal all the data, just not all at once, so it's okay."
Exactly! Want to be transparent? List everything that every specific game collects.
"We're putting cameras in every room of your house, but we pinky promise to only ever look at the feed from the kitchen."
too much text to just trying to say directly "we don't collect data". They are collecting data. A lot.
Right‽ If their terms of use indicate that they can collect this data no random PR promise can override/refute that! The only thing that can is an update to the T&C without this crap in there.
If they weren't they wouldn't need to put it in the ToS
My solution? Run Linux. If the game won’t run on Linux because of kernel level anticheat bullshit, DRM, or lack of proton support, refund that shit and never purchase a game from that developer again. If they do data collection, and it still runs on Linux, it is my understanding that all they can gather is what the proton compatibility layer feeds them, which is basically fiction. Proton is already tricking the software into thinking it’s running on windows, and is sandboxed from your bare metal system. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The games I already owned before my time with Linux? Whatever. I’ll take the loss. I’ll probably never play PUBG again and I’m fine with that.
By default, Wine/Proton has access to your full Linux filesystem under the virtual Z:/ drive from within the Wine environment, so any dedicated adversary could include your Linux stuff into its data collection. The odds of this already occurring are probably low-ish. You can use bubblewrap raw to start sandboxing resources (e.g. blocking network access or masking directories), or there's a project called sandwine which presumably auto-configures the important stuff through bubblewrap (though I've never gotten around to trying it). Wine itself can also be configured to drop the Z:/ drive through its winecfg tool.
Without a dedicated configuration, I'm not sure Wine has any real priority or guarantee about sandboxing your original system from Windows executables, which is also why it's important to remember that Windows malware can still do damage when running on a Linux system. The malware doesn't really even have to be aware that it's running in Wine if it just tries to encrypt any files it can reach.
This is why I use flatpak Steam. You might trust Valve but do you trust every third party developer?
Thanks for this, I’ll definitely dig in further