Steam is ditching a Google instrument that Valve says ‘does not align’ with its buyer privateness method

Valve is updating the system that reveals game builders statistics about who’s visiting their Steam pages. As a part of that update, Steam will cease supporting Google Analytics—the most-used instrument for monitoring web visitors—and builders who depend on it’s going to as a substitute have to make use of Steam’s built-in visitors reporting instruments.

“As time has gone on we have come to appreciate that Google’s monitoring options do not align nicely with our method to buyer privateness,” Valve stated in a weblog submit. Assist for Google Analytics will finish on July 1, which can also be when Google is switching off an outdated system, referred to as Common Analytics, and changing it with a brand new service referred to as Google Analytics 4.

As an alternative of supporting Google Analytics 4, Valve says it is centered on enhancing its personal Steam visitors reporting instruments. For instance, it is introducing a regional breakdown that reveals where a Steam web page is being accessed from, which “will be most helpful when contemplating the languages you may help in your game or where you may have to find servers for a multiplayer game.” That is one thing Google Analytics would’ve been in a position to do beforehand.

Some knowledge Valve says it’s going to proceed not to trace are demographics like “age, gender, and race.” And when the quantity of visitors from an exterior source is under a sure threshold, it’s going to categorize the source as “different” to keep away from inadvertently speaking info that might enable somebody to suss out the identification of a customer.

“All of the instruments and options that we talk about listed below are constructed with participant privateness in thoughts; Steam will proceed to not share personally identifiable info,” Valve wrote. “This method to privateness signifies that some trade-offs have been made alongside the way in which that limits how particular some reporting will be.”

Valve’s privateness coverage hasn’t modified (you may learn it right here), so ditching Google Analytics is an obvious effort to place itself in higher compliance with its personal guidelines. Valve didn’t say particularly what about Google Analytics does not “align” with its privateness method, or whether or not the change to Google Analytics 4 is the motivating issue or only a good second to make the break up. I’ve requested Google if it has a response to Valve’s remarks.