I was reminded by someone else that we are aware of multiple cases where bad behavior around the games led to restraining orders. People who live in areas with problematic players often choose unrelated usernames in the games that they play because they want to play a new game without potentially being stalked and harassed by the bad elements in their local area.
User privacy is important, and privacy leaks can have real-world implications to the health and safety of some players. Publicly linking usernames in different games must be strictly opt-in. @NianticCasey I see that HPWU and PoGo are still being published together. Please turn that off, or at the very least turn it off by default if the usernames are different.
Just to add to the user sentiment here that this should require an explicit opt in, there's potentially a legal argument that in the EU and UK it must be opt in as it reveals personally identifiable information in an additional way, which requires an explicit opt in under the GDPR legislation.
I'd recommend consulting a specialist GDPR lawyer before rolling this out in Europe as-is. It's unlikely to be much of an issue in itself, but if Niantic get the book thrown at them over things like not publishing Pokemon lootbox odds or adding VAT after the fact to event tickets, this could get added to the list of charges.
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I was reminded by someone else that we are aware of multiple cases where bad behavior around the games led to restraining orders. People who live in areas with problematic players often choose unrelated usernames in the games that they play because they want to play a new game without potentially being stalked and harassed by the bad elements in their local area.
User privacy is important, and privacy leaks can have real-world implications to the health and safety of some players. Publicly linking usernames in different games must be strictly opt-in. @NianticCasey I see that HPWU and PoGo are still being published together. Please turn that off, or at the very least turn it off by default if the usernames are different.
Just to add to the user sentiment here that this should require an explicit opt in, there's potentially a legal argument that in the EU and UK it must be opt in as it reveals personally identifiable information in an additional way, which requires an explicit opt in under the GDPR legislation.
I'd recommend consulting a specialist GDPR lawyer before rolling this out in Europe as-is. It's unlikely to be much of an issue in itself, but if Niantic get the book thrown at them over things like not publishing Pokemon lootbox odds or adding VAT after the fact to event tickets, this could get added to the list of charges.