Epic tries to ease fears that its launcher is collecting Steam data

As frustrations mount over Epic exclusivity for games like Phoenix Point and Satisfactory, a fresh wave of concern has come around over what data the Epic launcher is collecting and how it’s being used. It started in a vague Reddit post yesterday, which led to further digging by a ResetEra user earlier today - the latter of which suggested that the launcher is pulling your Steam friends and play history. We reached out to Epic for comment, and were directed to a Reddit response from engineering VP Daniel Vogel. Vogel says that while the Epic launcher does make a copy of your Steam install’s local config file, “information from this file is only sent to Epic if you choose to import your Steam friends, and then only hashed ids of your friends are sent and no other information from the file.” Vogel runs down several related concerns in that post, too. A file called ‘tracking.js’ is a tracking pixel used to pay participants in the Support-A-Creator programme. The launcher does collect hardware data, which is noted in the privacy policy. The launcher’s scans of active processes are intended to prevent updates to actively running processes.

from PCGamesN https://ift.tt/2Hznidw