Valve had to stop pretending it doesn’t own Steam’s data

Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg testified before the United States House of Representatives today and before the Senate yesterday about securing the personal data of the people who use his social network. In their questions, Congress made it clear that it wants Facebook to change its policies or face legal regulation. As this threat looms, Valve Software has announced this week that it is beefing up its security policies on its Steam PC gaming distribution service.

In a blog post yesterday, Valve announced that it is now hiding the contents of your game library by default. You can also hide details about your activity — like how many hours you’ve spent playing adult visual novels (live your truth!). This data had been public, and it was easily accessible by third parties using the official Steam API tool. That’s what powered services like the PC-game ownership-tracking website Steam Spy, which is shutting down due to this change, according to its owner.