Why people still USE ACT knowing their breaking TOS ??

[Mhaeric]

As to the others, especially the one deciding to use a forum rules breaking insult.

TOS states very clearly that the data belongs to Square Enix, even your Client side files and screen shots that you share belong to them. They "rent" you a license which they can withdraw at any time and without warning, when that license expires, you're no longer allowed access to that data, but ain't nobody going to chase you up for files sat on your hard drive you can't really do much with without server access.

You sharing screenshots & videos, no problem, it's copyright stamped so it's still shown to be property of Square Enix.

You sharing ingame data that is property of Square Enix on a 3rd party site which they don't want you doing, generating hits and thus revenue for someone else off Squares property? Problem. That's where the GDPR issue also comes in.

It's not your data, it's not my data, it's Squares data

To quote Willy Wonka

It's all there

Black and white

Crystal Clear.

Reason the makers don't get chased up with a Cease and Desist is because it's a waste of Lawyer fees and time, doesn't mean to say SE doesn't have the option at their disposal or that they couldn't just do it tomorrow if they felt it had become a problem.

Edit: Additionally, just remember there is a company out there that willingly flexes the full extent of their legal muscle, SE are pretty chill and let a lot of stuff fly, they encourage creators, often share their work and do so in hopes of building community in a positive way, would you rather SE turn into that other company where they slap copyright strikes on everything because they can? To lawyer up every time a fan made mod community appears? SE are lenient and it's actually a blessing that they are....

Push too hard, they could easily go the same route as a certain "Family console" company, because they have all the legal text to act with impunity on many a things, they choose not to and that's why "Don't ask, Don't tell" exists surrounding that certain mod.

It's at their grace, poke the bear too much, it has very sharp claws.

I see that you've finally changed to say that your data is owned by SE and not personal data. However, the GPDR has no bearing on corporate property and only applies to personal data. It has nothing to do with anything here. It's also only applicable to the EU, which might inform SE's policies certainly won't decide them. You really are just making things up.

I'll make it simple for you. This line from the user agreement is the reason why parsers are against terms of service:
"2.5 Data Mining. You may not intercept, mine or otherwise collect information from the Game using unauthorized third party software."
The Game is defined as "The Game includes software that is installed on your computer, as periodically updated by Square Enix ("Licensed Software"), as well as data that Square Enix maintains on its servers."

This is vague enough to possibly find a loophole for ACT since it only reads the incoming packets and some information temporarily stored locally in RAM and doesn't read anything from the software that is installed on your computer nor does it directly read the data on the server. This loophole might be argued away by noting that while ACT doesn't read directly from the server, it is collecting information that is otherwise maintained on the server. Note that it is absolutely not against the user agreement to do something like write it down or input the information into a spreadsheet. It is not collecting or utilizing the information for analysis that is against terms of service, it is using a software program to collect it.

[Melichoir]

This is vague enough to possibly find a loophole for ACT since it only reads the incoming packets and some information temporarily stored locally in RAM and doesn't read anything from the software that is installed on your computer nor does it directly read the data on the server. This loophole might be argued away by noting that while ACT doesn't read directly from the server, it is collecting information that is otherwise maintained on the server. Note that it is absolutely not against the user agreement to do something like write it down or input the information into a spreadsheet. It is not collecting or utilizing the information for analysis that is against terms of service, it is using a software program to collect it.

I think youre probably looking at this inverted. It's not that ACT finds a loophole in the ToS, its that the ToS is written specifically to allow said loophole by being vague and broad.

What I think people dont understand is that just because it's in the ToS doesnt mean that SE has to enforce it. It is their contract and they can choose to ignore or enforce parts of it as they see fit. This is, from a purely business and legal standpoint, ideal because it means they can allow for things that are a net positive to the player base but still have the means to address problems that crop up. So in this specific case, having a parser is going to be a net positive for Savage and Ultimate content and optimizing play for the player base, but they still have the wiggle room to punish players who abuse Parser information to berate or belittle players who may or may not be to concerned with optimal play.

To address a point that is constantly brought up:

No, it is not a violation of your privacy to have your combat data recorded by someone else. The simple truth is if the in-game combat log can pick it up, it is 'public' information within the context of the game. You have no recourse to prevent my combat log from displaying what you do in a trial. All parsers do (like ACT) is just translate combat data information into a more accessible format, but all the data you find on ACT can be put together via the combat log. So I can find out your DPS by painstakingly adding up the damage you do and doing the math. Youre not being 'snooped' upon because the information is out there in the air as long as we're together in a combat situation.

[Mhaeric]

I think youre probably looking at this inverted. It's not that ACT finds a loophole in the ToS, its that the ToS is written specifically to allow said loophole by being vague and broad.

What I think people dont understand is that just because it's in the ToS doesnt mean that SE has to enforce it. It is their contract and they can choose to ignore or enforce parts of it as they see fit. This is, from a purely business and legal standpoint, ideal because it means they can allow for things that are a net positive to the player base but still have the means to address problems that crop up. So in this specific case, having a parser is going to be a net positive for Savage and Ultimate content and optimizing play for the player base, but they still have the wiggle room to punish players who abuse Parser information to berate or belittle players who may or may not be to concerned with optimal play.

It's a legal document, so I doubt they purposely included vagueness. They are just, as you say, choosing to not enforce it selectively.

I'm of the opinion that if someone were to try to make a legal argument that the terms of service were vague enough to allow for ACT's use that they would lose that argument. The loophole is not that big and it's clearly against the spirit of the agreement.

[Melichoir]

It's a legal document, so I doubt they purposely included vagueness. They are just, as you say, choosing to not enforce it selectively.

I think its actually worded vaguely and broadly to give them latitude as they see fit. In a lot of cases, being overly specific can actually open up unintentional loopholes that they cant enforce against because they outline what you can and cant do to specifically. A hypothetical example would be if they said "You are not allowed to use the ACT Parser with FFXIV". It is a very specific thing, but what if there was a parser called "BPE" (Best parser ever). Well its not ACT, so therefore you arent violating the ToS. I know that the spirit of the ToS is to be against parsers, but you dont write it to target a specific action, you write it to be broad and vague to encompass a large enough concept so you can enforce as you see fit.

But beyond that, yeah, they enforce it as they see fit.