SE Please start caring about your players privacy.

[Exmo]

Even if I am not familiar with their systems, I know, as a dev myself, of two ways to fix this BS, but what do I know, right? Like, have an ID on their server side, maybe even with security behind it, and do not start with "the servers can’t handle this" it’s BS. They just don’t want to put some money into hardware that is not from 2010.

Handling blacklisting client-side is likely vastly more performant than handling it server-side. But yeah, they're probably reluctant to spend millions on globally migrating their servers to better hardware in unison simply to facilitate a blacklisting feature. Reasonable to be fair.

[Saraide]

Is there even a way to fix this? Once your alts and retainers are known you cant just undo that.

[Kaurhz]

Can this cause any issues and get SE in trouble with the EUs GDPR laws about data protection of this plugin can get your account ID data?
I'm wishing FFXIV could go back to how it was when l joined originally in 1.0 and there was zero add-ons or mods as I feel the add-ons seems to cause bigger negatives issues rather than positives. :/

I think GDPR only refers to a natural/real person, and not a fictitious character, so I think unless the account ID can be linked to a real person, e.g., email address/location/IP then I don't think it violates GDPR, though if it is managing to infer and accurately track login history then that is a very blurry line.

[NaoSen]

Is there even a way to fix this? Once your alts and retainers are known you can't just undo that.

That's the part that sucks, there isn't. The only "undo" is existing information changes, any alts you've not logged into or create in future, name changes, retainer name changes, the only things it does now that couldn't be done before are alt linking's and retainer linking's. If the data is frozen in place as of (assuming it ever got fixed), fix date then there's no ability for anything else to be certain related to it.

Of course, if information wasn't provided in the first place, then it would make it less accurate, like location from search or friends list for example.

To me, this is more a case of "How much does SE care" than information itself.

Edit: What you can only do is remove incentive for people to use it should it go public, for example one thing I am going to do, is tell friends that if it does come out and they decide to use it, to never mention it to me because I will report them. I am willing to turn a blind eye to things people do that do not harm others, let them take their own risks but this affects me.

[Dante131]

Is there even a way to fix this? Once your alts and retainers are known you cant just undo that.

nor really because the information is already taken. Even if you fix the issue with the id and give every character a name swap or whatever not everyone wants this aswell. damage is definitly done

[Daralii]

Is there even a way to fix this? Once your alts and retainers are known you cant just undo that.

The ID numbers for your account and characters are immutable. Once you're catalogued, the only way to get out of the database is to make a new account and start from scratch.

[Rueby]

Xeno talked about it on his stream but here's a shorter video about it. If anyone's curious how it actually works, Xeno shows a video of a demo around minute 12.

This is just disgusting...

Reverting the blacklist isn't the answer, if anything the database is out there. If they revert it then stalkers have all the information and we have none of the protection that the current blacklist offers. Unless we expect people to abandon their alts that they may have invested time/money into because of this careless oversight and still the game would have plenty of stalker friendly features....

[Dante131]

This is just disgusting...

Reverting the blacklist isn't the answer, if anything the database is out there. If they revert it then stalkers have all the information and we have none of the protection that the current blacklist offers. Unless we expect people to abandon their alts that they may have invested time/money into because of this careless oversight and still the game would have plenty of stalker friendly features....

Of course, it wouldn’t fix the issue entirely it would only prevent it from growing worse. Honestly, I don’t know what kind of solution could truly fix this... It might not even be recoverable at this point. You could try taking down databases one by one, but somewhere out there, someone will have a backup and figure out how to avoid getting caught next time.

The more I think about it, the more depressing it becomes. Not so much for myself because who would even care enough to stalk me? but for many others, this is a huge issue. And the sad reality is that it might not be fixable anymore. Maybe if decisive action had been taken quickly, things could have been mitigated, but now it’s too late. The damage is done that’s the most realistic way I can put it.

I fear there will eventually be a network where all this information is readily accessible. If someone truly wants to stalk you, they’ll find a way. Maybe some of us got on the list because we are talking in threads about it. Like a "Revenge" act i dont know how this people think so yeah .... happy times.

[Dante131]

Handling blacklisting client-side is likely vastly more performant than handling it server-side. But yeah, they're probably reluctant to spend millions on globally migrating their servers to better hardware in unison simply to facilitate a blacklisting feature. Reasonable to be fair.

There wouldn’t have been any need for migration if they had done it correctly the first time. But as I mentioned in my response to Rueby, this situation is already out of hand. From my perspective, here’s what might happen: the game could lose even more players because people will feel unsafe or get stalked. New players might hear about these issues and decide not to even start, which could push FFXIV further toward a free-to-play (F2P) model.

If that happens, they might begin selling quality-of-life features in the shop, eventually transitioning fully to F2P and suffering the same fate as Aion. I really hope I’m wrong about this. Still, if people leave, they’re going to lose those millions of dollars anyway, so I’m not sure what’s the bigger risk in the end.

Maybe I’m wrong, and nothing will happen. Maybe SE will manage to quietly sweep this under the rug and move on successfully. But right now, the uncertainty is troubling.

[Exmo]

There wouldn’t have been any need for migration if they had done it correctly the first time.

You've misunderstood me. You said they should just get new hardware to support managing the blacklist server-side, instead of running what you think is hardware from 2010. I'm saying getting new hardware is probably very expensive, just for this little feature.