A newly filed lawsuit alleges that GameStop is secretly recording, transcribing, and sharing private data of customer conversations with its support chat for marketing purposes. In doing so without the customer's consent, GameStop is violating several privacy laws within the United States.
Further, as first reported by Bloomberg Law, GameStop has allegedly violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) which prohibits the creation of transcripts based on a website's visitors without obtaining prior consent. Generally speaking, adhering to the law is rather straightforward as many websites will notify visitors of the possibility of any such recordings, but GameStop's website does not allegedly do this either.
Beyond even that, it seems GameStop is accused of sharing those transcripts with a third party that focuses on harvesting personal data from online users "for marketing and other purposes." The lawsuit states Zendesk, a customer support service provider, is intercepting and using these secret transcripts, rather than strictly providing the supposed customer support. As reported, the suit states that "given the nature of Defendant’s business, website visitors typically share highly personal and sensitive data with Defendant when using the website chat feature. Consumers would be shocked and appalled to know that Defendant secretly creates transcripts of those conversations and shares them with a third party."
GameStop has not publicly commented on this lawsuit, and at least at this stage, it is not likely to do so. Until something with this filling is made clear, however, users may want to be mindful when using the GameStop website's chat feature, out of an abundance of safety. After all, pooling together such personal information is dangerous in more ways than one, as others who are more malicious could obtain this information, like with various ransomware attacks in the industry. GameStop is allegedly using it for marketing, but that alone is dangerous when one looks at how much information someone may unintentionally share about their shopping habits in this chat.
Of course, while this continues to develop, fans should be aware that this is not the latest allegation thrown against GameStop. Recently, former GameStop workers revealed they were encouraged to lie to customers, whatever they needed to do, to upsell warranties of any sort and GameStop Pro memberships. The bottom line there is just making that sale. Now, plenty of retailers of all sorts "push" sales through a variety of manners, like a gas station placing discounted candy at the checkout counter, but straight-up lying is a different story. All in all, GameStop seems to have had plenty of ups and downs this year, but the outcome of this particular lawsuit remains to be seen.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz (via Bloomberg Law)