Thursday, September 8, 2022

Apparently GameStop Wants to Wiretap Customers

You know how when you call customer service or talk over chat you're informed a conversation might be recorded, but it is just for employee training purposes (or in case you're a jerk and they need to show why they hung up on you/closed the chat). It is understood a company won't sell data from a talk to a third-party company for any reason because that would be unethical and illegal, right? Well, Gamestop hears your concerns and isn't just selling used video-games and NFTs, they're also selling conversations with customers! Yes, wiretapping is the latest innovation from GameStop, how lovely.

Data is valuable. If you could know that a bunch of people who play a specific video-game also like a certain brand of soda, that random fact could benefit a company thinking about cross-promotions or such, to give a single example. That said, you can't just harvest data from people without permission. When someone gets a loyalty card with a grocery store that tracks their purchases they agreed for that data to be used (and at least made anonymous). Gamestop apparently didn't choose to inform folks the personal information they disclose in customer service chats might be recorded (and then sold), so that's a problem. I'm sure it was all a big misunderstanding as GameStop is such a lovely company to work for or shop with, right? Right?

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