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Fallout 3: GOTY Edition is free to keep for the next 24 hours on the Epic Games Store
(store.epicgames.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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But it does. You're still giving them your data, which they can use for all manner of things. If that's something you don't care about, then more power to you - enjoy your free game.
Literally the only data they can get is basic hardware info and your e-mail address which is easy to fake. You can even use an alternate launcher like Heroic and give them basically nothing. The point isn't to "take people's data", they give away games to try to generate interest in EGS and get people to download it and spend money on the store. You lose nothing by redeeming the game.
They collect and use quite a bit more than that, it's in their privacy policy:
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/privacypolicy
Sure, their primary focus is most likely generating interest and usage of their platform, but they'll also use analytical and statistical information to influence their business decisions.
On a personal note, I made the decision as a consumer to not interact with them as much as possible. Even when I did have an account to collect free games years ago, the only thing I actually played was a Satisfactory alpha/beta event. I have more than enough games to play, so I am not concerned with collecting their free games.
This is literally a bog standard privacy policy. Any closed source website or app you use will also track analytics and usage, and basic hardware info like I mentioned. You might as well go on a crusade against Steam for doing the same thing. You and people like you making these comments act like Epic, specifically, is bad for privacy as if nobody else has trackers. You're misleading people.
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I am not against Epic because of their privacy policy. I don't like Epic because of their business practices and owners, and don't want to give them anything, even if it's just a bogus email address and a few clicks or whatnot. And no, I never tried to imply other companies don't do the same thing.
Here's the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned:
I don't like Epic, and want nothing to do with them. If others want to interact with them, even if it's just for the free games, that's their decision to make.
Oh no, now they know the one-off email address I used for my Epic account!
If you really think you're less clever than an entire industry that has been built up around tracking people and keeping ghost profiles on them, go ahead and keep patting yourself on the back, bud.
They know who you are, that's not anywhere near as clever as you think.
You realize IP addresses exist, right?
IP address? Oh, you mean the thing that rotates every 24 hours?
I guess things like Speech Pattern Analysis don't exist then, nor has Big Data ever been known to sift through data to connect data points.
Like unless your job is director of IT Security for Microsoft, I doubt you have the credentials to be as anonymous as you think you are.
On top of the fact that most people know that the more you try to anonymize yourself, the more you actually make yourself unique in terms of data because very few people use obfuscation techniques, and those techniques are well known. Thus, if they think you're obfuscating your identity, you're now just thrown in the "people who like anonymity" bag of data, which when connected with previously collected data on "people who like anonymity" can be used to create a profile on you, specifically.
If I believed Epic was really that good at making money by secretly collecting data, I don't know why I'd believe they need me to download their launcher to do it. They're either cartoon supervillains or they're not.
They own Easy Anti-Cheat, which has kernel level access and collects data as part of its user agreement but these people keep regurgitating the debunked claim of the launcher being spyware. Occam's razor, anyone?
To me, Occam's razor also says they're not recording that data anywhere because it exposes them to liability and because it's useless.
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