Most recently, we know that the Epic Store application has copied user data from a Steam file called localconfig.vdf. According to Epic, the app only stores this file on your computer and does nothing more unless you want to extract Steam friends – it will just send the friend IDs to Epic’s servers.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the process was hastily designed “in the early days of Fortnite,” and will be fixed soon. He also said that the Epic Store does not use the Steam API due to Epic’s privacy concerns because “APIs often collect more data than expected”. He pointed out this issue in an article about Facebook collecting user data.
In a letter to Bleeping Computer, Valve’s Doug Lombardi said the company is “exploring what information the Epic Store app is collecting from Steam.” It seems Valve is not too happy about this.
“The Steam Client stores data on your computer such as the list of games you own, the list of friends and login information,” Lombardi wrote. “This is private user data, stored on the user’s computer, and is not intended for use by other software or for posting to any other third party service.
“Users can find localconfig.vdf and any Steam configuration files in the Steam Client’s installation path and open them with text-reading software to see what data is contained in those files. You can also view all data related to your account at: https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata.”
In other words, Valve thinks that the Epic Store shouldn’t touch the localconfig.vdf file at all, and wants Epic to use the Steam API to collect friends lists.
As for Epic, they have not said that this entire file is uploaded, but only take user ID information and post their IDs, just to extract Steam friends. In the future, Valve may encrypt this data to prevent Epic apps and other software from copying it.
Source link: Valve is not happy with Epic Store copying its Steam data
– https://emergenceingames.com/