Portalarium/Black Sun business deal against EU-laws?

Aragon100

Seems Portalarium/Black Sun business deal and how it have been handled might be against EU laws. 


Snikorts - I find it offensive to consider Baltic States as russian native speaker countries.
Are we going back to USSR? Really?  As far as I know we are in EU for a while now 
English is not my native language, neither is russian... Avatars should choose for themselves where to belong.
It is especially puzzling regarding recent political developments in Russia.
This is not what I have backed for.
Hope that things will change for best.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/avatar-customer-transition-to-russian-speaking-forums-and-website-really.111022/



.rhavin - If you live inside the EU, any transfer of personal data to outsiders of the EU has to be approved by you. If you give your data to an american company you only approved their use of your data. If they give your data to any other company, they're fully indictable for a serious offence against Data Protection Directive 95/46 and upcomming §49 of european privacy law.

This might be new to american 'free-capitalism-apologetics', but business-models including the cross-border outsouring of personal data are simply illegal in the EU.

It actually did cost facebook 110M€ (~$125M) to learn that lesson.



.rhavin - The highest European Court already ruled that Terms in User agreements that violate European Law are void.



Helvig Ingvildsdottir - I am sure there must have been a clear opt-in action. I am sure Portalarium would never break EU law by sharing the private data of their customers in the Baltics, whom everyone knows to have been members of the European Union and therefore under EU law for almost 14 years now! I trust this is a big misunderstanding and will be clarified very soon. @Berek said in another thread that they were looking into it.



evillego6 - I couldn't find an opt-in/out option in my user account, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. It might exist somewhere, I just couldn't find it with a cursory look.

As far as I'm aware, the recently passed EU laws regarding personal data protection do not go in to effect until May 24 of this year.

I imagine any issues surrounding this were inadvertent.



Helvig Ingvildsdottir - No excuses. The directive mentioned by .rhavin has been around since October 24 1995. This directive is valid until May 25 this year, when the new EU data protection directive will become active. It can be read here in different languages (including Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian, but - big surprise! - not Russian): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31995L0046



Kara Brae - Forget about balance, PVP, combat, housing or any of the other million things people gripe about all the time. In my opinion this is the most serious issue of the game and everybody needs to realize it. There can be no overkill.

Whoever came up with the idea of assuming that everyone living in "CIS, the Baltic States, and neighboring regions" speaks Russian or that anyone at all would want their customer data handed over to a Russian company without their knowledge or consent must have been beaten repeatedly over the head with a Club of Stupidity. (That would make a good artifact or add-on store item, by the way.)

A thought just came to me for an experiment: Alaska and Russia could be considered to fall into the "neighboring regions" classification. Why not switch Alaskans over to the Moscow company and see how they react?

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/avatar-customer-transition-to-russian-speaking-forums-and-website-really.111022/page-7

Renoaku

Glad I didn't buy the game when the company goes and separates servers and stuff based off territory rather than letting people know they are doing this before they backed the game and such.

If it really is illegal because I am not really familiar with European Laws, then they should ask users if they want to OPT-IN to sharing cross country, or offer full refunds to users who do not agree at this point.

blorpykins

If it is illegal and they have to offer refunds then they probably won't address the problem until after launch.  They most likely don't have any money for refunds right now.  They can't even ship out physical rewards yet, and are pushing to the right again until sometime after launch.

Kyleran

3rd time you've posted this in the forums, not getting the outrage you are seeking from the other threads?

Kyleran

It would appear at the very least this move violates their own TOS.

"We will not knowingly sell, share, rent or otherwise transfer your information other than in accordance with the terms set forth in this Privacy Policy. We do not share any information that can be tied to you without your permission. If you give your permission to allow third parties to contact you, personal information about you (such as your contact information and other information collected during your visit to the Websites) may be shared with data aggregators, marketers (possibly in the form of list rental), and other organizations. Regardless of your decision regarding the sharing of your personal information, we may share broad aggregate demographic data and related usage information with our business partners. This aggregate information does not contain any personal information that can identify any individual user."

Kyleran

Everyone in the EU appears to believe this move breaks their data privacy rules.

Speaking of which, with new, tougher privacy standards are about to go in effect in May, perhaps this move doesn't violate the old rules (which are from the 90s I believe) so they did it now before the new ones prevented it?

Or maybe the folks at Portalarium are just clueless game Devs with bad lawyers?

I'd say go with the latter.

k61977

Kyleran said:

3rd time you've posted this in the forums, not getting the outrage you are seeking from the other threads?

Yeah I thought this was the same one that I had posted on after actually going to all the different sites and reading up on this.  Started off a cut and paste from the other post, then added some more stuff to the bottom.

Anyway this was a horrible move by Portalarium and hopefully comes back to bite them in the ass. 

Aragon100

Kyleran said:

3rd time you've posted this in the forums, not getting the outrage you are seeking from the other threads?

Not really.

Difference is the EU-law aspect that came to light and it is a different aspect then russians being segregated.

That thread was opened by someone else btw.

Aragon100

Kyleran said:

Everyone in the EU appears to believe this move breaks their data privacy rules.

Speaking of which, with new, tougher privacy standards are about to go in effect in May, perhaps this move doesn't violate the old rules (which are from the 90s I believe) so they did it now before the new ones prevented it?

Or maybe the folks at Portalarium are just clueless game Devs with bad lawyers?

I'd say go with the latter.

.rhavin seem to know what he is talking about so it will be interesting to follow how it develops.

.rhavin - If you live inside the EU, any transfer of personal data to outsiders of the EU has to be approved by you. If you give your data to an american company you only approved their use of your data. If they give your data to any other company, they're fully indictable for a serious offence against Data Protection Directive 95/46 and upcomming §49 of european privacy law.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/avatar-customer-transition-to-russian-speaking-forums-and-website-really.111022/page-7

MadFrenchie

Hopefully they didn't bungle it that badly.

By the way, this looks like something that some part of the company behind the project looks into to avoid by retaining legal experts...  Someone like the publisher, maybe?

blorpykins

Kyleran said:

It would appear at the very least this move violates their own TOS.

"We will not knowingly sell, share, rent or otherwise transfer your information other than in accordance with the terms set forth in this Privacy Policy. We do not share any information that can be tied to you without your permission. If you give your permission to allow third parties to contact you, personal information about you (such as your contact information and other information collected during your visit to the Websites) may be shared with data aggregators, marketers (possibly in the form of list rental), and other organizations. Regardless of your decision regarding the sharing of your personal information, we may share broad aggregate demographic data and related usage information with our business partners. This aggregate information does not contain any personal information that can identify any individual user."

They don't take their EULA seriously, never have.  RMT violates the EULA bu they still talk about it and allow it per official forum posts, rules, and disclaimers.  They even have long conversation about it defending it, like when players got upset that there was RMT power leveling going on, and that is a clear violation of the EULA, but Darkstarr came and and said it was ok, that all RMT was allowed in any form.

For this situation, they probably knew it was wrong and that's why they didn't give anyone any real advanced notice or talk about it.  They made a forum post, then put a note in email and a few days later made the change.  They are all industry veterans and they have investors that also own seats on their board.  They probably had meetings about this and did their due diligence before the change.  They did this with a purpose in mind, otherwise they would have been able to undo it by now.

Aragon100

Portalarium response -

Hi Avatars,

There have been some recent questions to this announcement. Please see the following FAQ for answers, which we will update as needed:

Q: "Why am I being redirected to a Russian site? I'm not in a Russian territory..."

A: Possible reasons include where you are currently logged in from, and in which territory are you normally a resident. We are redirecting if you are residing in any of these 15 territories: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Q: "Was my account data moved to Black Sun?"

A: All account data is still stored by Portalarium's system. We licensed Black Sun in the Russian Federation, Baltic States, CIS, and neighboring regions, to provide Customer Service, forums, and a web store that have been localized for your region. We share only the account data with Black Sun that is necessary for them to be able to service your needs.

Q: "Were EU data privacy laws accommodated during the transition of user accounts to Black Sun?"

A: Portalarium, and its licensed partners, strive to support all laws within the regions they service, and will make every effort to correct any non-compliances that may occur. 

Q: "Will I be playing on a different server?"

A: All Shroud of the Avatar players will remain together on the same server.

Q: "Can I still contact Portalarium customer support?"

A: Of course! We are happy to help all players! Please contact us at support@portalarium.com

Q: "Can I use a VPN to access the sites I need to view? Is this legal?"

A: Please see our EULA about what is allowed and what is not for game access.

Q: "What if I have a bug to report, where does that go?"

A: For all bug reports and customer support needs, please contact: support@bs-gp.com​

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/black-sun-customer-migration.110422/#post-961235


dallas - Fellow Avatars,

We deeply apologize for any disruptions the transition of customer support from our US operations to our international partners may have caused some of you. Our highest priority is for you to receive the best possible service, which we expect our international partners to be able to deliver more effectively for your region than our US-based operations can. In order for our international partners to be able to support you, as we have contracted them to do, they must be able to legally access the necessary customer account data.

Portalarium, along with our international partners, strive to support all laws within the regions we service. We will explore the data privacy concerns some of you have expressed in this thread and should we discover any non-compliance with data privacy laws then we, along with our international partners, will act swiftly to achieve compliance.

We are deeply appreciative of all of you, our generous backers from all regions of the world, without whose support Shroud of the Avatar would not exist! Our door will always be open to all players of Shroud of the Avatar, no matter where in the world you live, and along with our international partner's customer support, you can always contact our US-based customer support directly at support@portalarium.com.

Appreciatively,
Dallas

---
COO/Founder Portalarium

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/avatar-customer-transition-to-russian-speaking-forums-and-website-really.111022/page-8#post-961286

blorpykins

"We share only the account data with Black Sun that is necessary for them to be able to service your needs."

They're sharing personal account information with the Russian Federation without consent.  That's not good.

Kyleran

blorpykins said:

"We share only the account data with Black Sun that is necessary for them to be able to service your needs."

They're sharing personal account information with the Russian Federation without consent.  That's not good.

"Personal information" has a very specific legal meaning.  For example, your name and address are PI, but your SotA account ID number is not.

The new regulations deal a lot with whether or not someone can trace back to your PI through your non PI data, such as avatar or account names and what not.

blorpykins

Kyleran said:

blorpykins said:

"We share only the account data with Black Sun that is necessary for them to be able to service your needs."

They're sharing personal account information with the Russian Federation without consent.  That's not good.

"Personal information" has a very specific legal meaning.  For example, your name and address are PI, but your SotA account ID number is not.

The new regulations deal a lot with whether or not someone can trace back to your PI through your non PI data, such as avatar or account names and what not.

If they have to share personal details for delivery of physical goods, and account information to populate the forums and allow a hook for store purchases to be redeemed in the US account, if it's all benign information, they should just say what it is and puts everyone's mind at ease.

DXSins

Q: "Were EU data privacy laws accommodated during the transition of user accounts to Black Sun?"

A: Portalarium, and its licensed partners, strive to support all laws within the regions they service, and will make every effort to correct any non-compliances that may occur.

Reads... Yea we probably fked up but cannot say we did, are lawyers are now telling us.

'Strive to' and 'Make every effort'... sooo you didn't lol.

Quizzical

Aragon100 said:

A: Possible reasons include where you are currently logged in from, and in which territory are you normally a resident. We are redirecting if you are residing in any of these 15 territories: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Basically, they're trying to put the USSR back together?  I'd think that more than a few people in those countries would rather strongly object to being characterized as "Russian".

Aragon100

2 weeks before release -

Nexus-6 - Current state:

1. No Steam integration (no acces to account page).
2. No trials (if you whant play game you must buy first).
3. No possibility participate in teleton, sales...
4. Broken in game functional - not worked map.
5. In some country not possible make ANY payment...

Yes, "everything else is green"... 2 week before release.



Warrior B'Patrick - Greetings all and @Berek, @dallas, @Lord British @DarkStarr . There was, and still is an easy solution to this MESS! Having partners and support areas in other countries is a great idea. Someone that understands the local area and speaks the language with localized forums is a great way to foster communities in other countries. BUT! Setting those up and letting us choose would have been a much better solution instead of transferring anyone with an IP in selected areas to a service that they have not chosen or do not want to go to. All accounts and direct access should be based on where they were created until a user opts in to be serviced by another region. I can only speak from my own experience being from America but many people do not understand the intricacies of relations in other countries. I was not aware of many of these until I started traveling abroad. I am now station in Azerbaijan and my access to my account that was started during the Kickstarter phase was recently migrated to Black Sun and not I have no access to my account page or Weekly updates. It automatically re-directs me to www.sota-game.com based on my IP. I can still access the forums as long as I am already logged into them but if i log out then I HAVE to open my VPN to be able to log back in. This also means that I can not participate in any telethons, or character submissions, or anything else that requires a login to do. With the game going public in 14 days this is an unfortunate event that is going to play out in public and hurt sales. I love this game and have been a part of it since 2013. I have followed Lord British from when I first meet him in Sandy Springs, GA when he was going to the game stores to talk about Ultima III. I want this game to do great but not resolving this now before the game goes public is going to hurt sales and possibly the future of the game.



Snikorts - Thank you for a reply, but provided answers doesn't explain much beyond what we already know and have experienced after R51 release.

"Q: "Was my account data moved to Black Sun?"

A: All account data is still stored by Portalarium's system. We licensed Black Sun in the Russian Federation, Baltic States, CIS, and neighboring regions, to provide Customer Service, forums, and a web store that have been localized for your region. We share only the account data with Black Sun that is necessary for them to be able to service your needs."

I can't really see how game has been localised for my region. Baltic states speaks three different languages, none of them is Russian. We do have Russian speaking community but they are minority in the overall context.
There is no point to localise game in Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian languages because of scale of Baltic States. Latvia has less than 2million citizens, I guess 10 or 20 of them will play SOTA...
I don't know what is the plan for other EU countries, but with free movement and working permitments whole EU are really mixed.
For example I have a lot of friends who moved to Berlin to live and work there. They do speak German, but their communication preference is english.
So localisation question becomes really difficult if you force it by your IP address.
Also it is a big question do we rally need localisations in 2018?
Maybe in 95 or in the beginning of 2000's it was viable move in our region to win niche market but nowadays almost all youngsters speaks perfect English (I guess I am the last generation who's english stayed on basic level  ) .

Issue with Ukraine is also complicated on many levels, so localisation should be option for those who really needs it.

I also think that all "localised" websites should have same design and feel as original one.
Maybe official website could have language options bellow menu? One click would redirect player to SOTa partners website.

I can assure you that many players (those who will stay) will ignore BSP localised website and use VPN to read Portalarium news about game development.


"Q: "What if I have a bug to report, where does that go?"

A: For all bug reports and customer support needs, please contact: support@bs-gp.com"

I can state that support@bs-gp.com has not replied to my emails. I also feel that these issues has to be resolved directly through SOTA official developers, since they signed contract with third party company and it is their responsibility to find solution to our problems.



Snikorts - I do understand that there is agreement between Port and BSP but it is clearly not thought through well.

All that BSP does in Baltic Countries is copy&paste official info and get revenues.
All that players get is bad service and alienation from original community.



Weins201 - they already sold it - over 4 years ago - see the problem with that statement.

it has nothing to do with sales these people already bought and had access now something has changed

Kind of like selling you mortgage from one bank to another but in this case somethign drastic has changed, not just a move. It is like all the sudden my fixed rate 2.47 % is not variable and already up to 5% I know drastic comparison but same concept.

In the beginning when all the people bought the game this was never even a consideration, they have been sold out plain and simple. Now they do not have the access they already had, nor do they have the services they had. 

Something bad has happened.


Nexus-6 - I bought game on Steam in 2015 and raise up my pladge to Collector, paying to Portalarium. If Portalarium says in 2015 that my personal data will be transferred to Russia I would not buy not pladges not game... And Black Sun not make ANY solution, becouse solution not in thier hands...

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/avatar-customer-transition-to-russian-speaking-forums-and-website-really.111022/page-9

Aragon100

Berek - For customer support in these territories, please be sure to contact Black Sun at support@bs-gp.com.

Please keep on topic. If you are not an actual customer in these territories, we ask that you refrain from contributing to a topic that's steadily derailing.



Snikorts - Problem is that support@bs-gp.com does not reply to my questions



Warrior B'Patrick - Greetings @Berek, The problem is that I have been migrated to Black Sun purely because I am currently in Azerbaijan. I am a us citizen stationed in another country, my account was created on a US server and transferred to a Russian company without any agreement from me. What happens when I come home? Will I still be linked to the Russian company even though my IP has changed back to a US one? What if I have been advised by my superiors that I am not to have any links with Russian servers? Do I loose all access to the game or its support services? Who do I contact about a refund for ALL my purchases over the years I have been a supporter? For that matter look at the difference between the www.shrouldoftheavatar.com web site and the www.sota-game.com website and tell me how it is the same support and information especially since I do not read Russian? The reason the topic is derailing is because the only answer to this seems to be "Contact Black Sun Support for all your questions"


https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/avatar-customer-transition-to-russian-speaking-forums-and-website-really.111022/page-10