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"Epic Games Store client contains spyware targeting Steam users"

The data copied contains names of friends and games played

Raymond Bakker
by
Raymond Bakker
Saturday, March 16, 2019 | 15:49 GMT
2 min.

"Epic Games Store client contains spyware targeting Steam users"

Saturday, March 16, 2019 | 15:49 GMT
Raymond Bakker
by
Raymond Bakker


The Epic Games Store client copies Steam data after it is installed. The data copied contains names of friends, which games were played and how long those were played. Epic Games confirmed the collecting of this data.

According to a recent Reddit post, the Epic Games Store client contains "spyware" that copies Steam's localconfig.vdf file after it is installed. The copied data contains names of friends, a list of recently played titles and how long those titles have been played.

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Epic Games VP of Engineering Daniel Vogel confirmed the findings on the social media platform, but stated that the information will only uploaded to its servers if players decide to import friends. CEO Tim Sweeney also confirmed the findings, stating that it is a "remnant left over from our rush to implement social features."

Sweeney further notes that the client should not have accessed the data without approval from their users and said the company would work on changing the current implementation. He did not comment on when this change will be released.

The Reddit user who posted his findings also claims that the Epic Games Store client tracks which processes are running and that it tries to access Internet Explorer cookies.

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About the author

Raymond Bakker
Raymond Bakker
Editor and journalist at ZeroLives. He covers the latest video games news from indie to virtual reality and has been actively involved in the video games industry since the early 2000s.
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