Microsoft Account Suspensions Lifted - But Lack of Consumer Rights Comes Into Focus

[00:00:03]Okay, so we're trying to be positive here, but man, it can be difficult sometimes. And a story came to light this week that we've got to talk about here because it does basically concern, you know, the future of console gaming as far as I see it. Um, so we had this interesting situation here, outrageous almost I'd say, where basically um a Twitch streamer called uh Joshua Khn um basically lost his entire Microsoft account. it was uh basically closed by Microsoft because um it had been compromised and uh he lost all of his games, thousands of euros worth of purchases and um personal photographs basically the entire Microsoft account, the one drive associated with that particular account was gone. And um yeah, I mean basically it's all been documented online that you know before I go on there has been a happy conclusion to this but actually that conclusion raises even more questions. But I'm just looking at the initial um response that Microsoft gave to gave to Joshua there and basically saying at Microsoft safeguarding your account is a top priority. We have thoroughly investigated the account and billing activity associated with your Microsoft account. Based on this review, we've confirmed that unauthorized access occurred. During the investigation, we discovered that the security information on your account had been changed. Due to our strict security protocols and the terms outlined in the Microsoft services agreement, we are unable to uh to modify or restore the security settings once they've been updated. To prevent further misuse, we have per permanently suspended the account. This action is irreversible. Actually, turns out it isn't and ensures that your data remains uh protected. If you use this account for Minecraft, we regret to inform you the game cannot be recovered. A new purchase will be required on a newly created account. We understand this may be disappointing and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

[00:01:53]Additionally, if you had files stored in one drive, those files are no longer accessible due to encryption and privacy safeguards. Even our engineers cannot retrieve them. Actually, turns out they can. Uh when this out while this outcome may not be ideal, it is necessary to ensure your personal data does not fall into the wrong hands. Um so basically what insured ensured was a um a complete social media disaster area for Microsoft and it did turn out that they could actually uh uh restore his account. He's been sorted. He's a very huh happy guy.

[00:02:28]Um uh however there are big questions here, profound questions basically as we transition away into a kind of new digital only environment for Xbox. And I I should say at this point that um although this particular story relates to Microsoft, there's no reason why it won't apply to Sony as well. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that have been unduly affected by um uh the the kind of terms and conditions associated with digital accounts. Um [sighs] John, where do we start with this? Because as far as I'm concerned, there's good points and bad points to this particular story. First of all, it's brought to light um severe shortcomings in terms of um the policies uh associated with digital ownership and digital accounts. The good news is that um it looks as though those pro protocols can be circumvented that they are you know that the loss of data and purchases isn't uh irreversible as that email said but at the same time the fact that Microsoft has basically backed down in what was effectively um social media public shaming kind of suggests that the existing protocols are not fit for purpose and that not just Microsoft but everybody who's actually sort of pointing us towards this digital only future that kind of needs to take stock about consumer protections here and actually respecting the audience.

[00:03:57]>> Yes, Rich, this is a this is a very important topic and people might be like, well, why are you, you know, angry at just this one case, whatever. It's it does actually apply to digital ownership, the future of ownership for these types of goods. it relates to how these companies do business and what we should be fighting to prevent. Uh, and as you noted, it's very important to note this is not a Microsoft exclusive issue. Uh, I think we talked about it earlier this year. There were cases and it's still happening where people's PlayStation's accounts are getting hacked and the same thing occurred. It exactly happened uh with um some other people recently from what I recall and it was the same situation where once you get that social media backlash, they restore the account, everything's good.

[00:04:46]That happened on PlayStation, but a lot of people are left hanging in the wind.

[00:04:50]Uh and even I talked to somebody yesterday that had this kind of happen with Nintendo, but it was different. It was more like they hadn't used the account for years and then they got a Switch 2 and then the account was just gone.

[00:05:02]So, uh, that's another thing >> there. And I think that actually ties into that whole EU thing which to prevent people from saving data long term, but that's also not really good in terms of like purchases, right? So, the the whole fight here is to retain ownership of digital goods. Obviously, we've been very upset, especially me, about the removal of physical game options, especially on the Sony side.

[00:05:29]And I'm happy that a lot of people are continuing to push back against that. So that's great. But whether that can be won and discs restored, that's that feels difficult to achieve. But what should be also focused on is this thing about digital rights. Uh and right now, as you can see, it's very easy for a company to essentially remove your entire purchase history in case some cases going back like 20 years, right? I don't think that's acceptable and I think it should be illegal to do this and I'm not sure how we can really affect change on this outside of talking about it. But I would like to see this challenged in a way to prevent this from occurring because fundamentally if you spent thousands of dollars on something or just people could have spent tens of thousands on this stuff over the years, right? Just to have them email you and say, "Sorry, we're taking all of that away." like that. In no world should that ever be acceptable and we cannot allow the companies to do this. This is this is ridiculous.

[00:06:36]>> Yeah, it's it's outrageous. And basically what's going to happen here is that cases like this will snowball. You know, now there's been um public exposure to it. More people will come forward with their stories and basically what's inevitably going to happen is some sort of um uh regulatory response or legal response. there's there's going to be court cases basically and change has to happen. So, it's basically down to the platform holders to try and do better before that happens to to sort of see it off. But, you know, when you sort of see stories like this, as I said, on the one hand, there's there's hope there because it turns out the data isn't irretrievable, even though they say it is. But on the other hand, the concept of actually being forced into a response there that's equitable to the user shouldn't really be >> what the the the best way forward here.

[00:07:27]It's kind of crazy.

[00:07:28]>> Most users won't have this option, right? This only resolved in a positive way because this guy had social media connections and was able to get the story out there.

[00:07:37]>> Most users don't have this and Microsoft, Sony, whatever. They're going to give the same kind of BS response where it's like, "Oh, sorry." You know, and it's always written in that that that specific way that just feels so insulting as well. Uh very legal ease in order to, you know, soften the blow. But the blow is significant.

[00:07:57]>> Yeah. I mean, I do think there are going to be scenarios where um there may well be sort of egregious breaches of terms and conditions that could see um uh sanctions against particular users, right? But at the same time um there still needs to be a mechanism in place that's kind of like equitable. So Rich, on that matter, I actually think the if there is a reason for an account to be blocked from making further transactions, I think at the very least there should be a method for putting an account in a state that prevents them that does not prevent them from accessing their already purchased products, right? They shouldn't be able to take away your project products. If they want to make it so you can't further engage with the system, fine.

[00:08:43]Maybe there's maybe there's room for that in extreme situations, but they should not be able to simply take away all your purchases like this. That is unacceptable.

[00:08:53]>> Mhm. Oliver, what's your thoughts on this?

[00:08:56]>> Yeah. Um, I think that sometimes when you're dealing with some kind of security breach, whether it's a bank account or a Microsoft account or I've seen people have this with Apple accounts, very similar situations, or any other kind of private administrator of data, the easiest thing to do to limit liability is just to say, okay, washing our hands of this relationship and [laughter] move on for the administration, right, for that company.

[00:09:19]Um, and at least in some cases, like with a bank, the bank is obligated to give you back your money. In this case, Microsoft isn't obligated to do anything, which seems very perverse.

[00:09:28]This actually happened with a friend of mine quite recently um where someone got her bank info and tried to withdraw I think 250,000 or not 250,000 20,000 $25,000 from her account. Her bank stopped the transaction and called her about it, but then they said, "And we're going to terminate the banking relationship because you're too much of a liability because someone got your info and tried to hack into your account." And then they said they'd send her the money back. And there was this whole hubbhub about that and it took ages and it they ended up releasing the money to her. But like in this situation, they only ended up releasing the money to her after she said she would write a story about it in a major American magazine. So that was a a big problem in her case.

[00:10:06]>> But yeah, I do think one of the key kind of issues here is I don't think companies should be able to lock your data or delete or lock your data or anything like that as as kind of like a first response to an issue like this.

[00:10:18]People need, I think, a legally enforcable um right to human review for cases like this so they can get a human on the line, explain the situation, and hopefully deal with someone who might be able to be a little bit more flexible or at least release their data in some form. And I do think there should be some kind of right, this wouldn't apply to everything, but some kind of right to transfer um possibly purchases, possibly other data across kind of uh providers of of uh information storage. In this case, when we're talking about Microsoft, we're talking about Xbox.

[00:10:47]We're also talking about like one drive, all your photos, all this stuff because people have hooked their systems in with all these cloud providers. I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's like they've hooked their entire computing of their entire lifestyle in with one of these providers. So losing access to that information is very traumatic even in the, you know, maybe there are some select cases where people do need to be relieved of this information or relieved of access to this information, but it should be transferable to another provider. So yeah, I do think that there should be some kind of push on this, but it does I think like you said, John, it does kind of reveal that digital rights to goods are licenses that can be taken away at any time >> by anyone's whim at the moment. Uh there's not really any seeming legal recourse to this. Not really any seeming political recourse to this at the moment. So I hope that there is some kind of system enforced where companies have to take this more seriously. And in the case of something truly egregious, maybe you have done something really egregious. They are releasing your data to you. They're sending you your photos, sending you your videos, whether that's to another provider, whether that's in like a zip drive or something, a flash drive, who knows? But there needs to be some kind of way to ease this situation because when it does happen, it's extremely traumatic.

[00:11:58]I uh I do like the concept of them sending you a zip if that takes me back, Oliver. [laughter] >> Little dated.

[00:12:06]>> It would be [gasps] Yeah, why not just like one of those old scuzzy optical drives [laughter] [clears throat] or like you know a thousand CDRs. [laughter] >> Um you know the thing that I find uh annoying here is you know if you go back to the Microsoft support letter that they sent to to Joshua there. It's just full of lies or or or things that are clearly not true. If you know if if we're going to soften that ever so slightly. you know, they did uh actually um uh get his one drive files back.

[00:12:38]They're saying here that it's um uh even our engineers cannot retrieve them.

[00:12:42]Well, it turns out they did. You know, there's a lot of stuff going on here. It just seems as though [laughter] >> it just seems as though >> um you know, it's it's just not based in reality here. It's just it's just not great all around. I mean, you know, we do have a quite a a big reach with DF Direct Weekly. you know, we've seen the analytics and and whatnot. Um, I know there are people from Microsoft and Sony listening to this and I'm urging you to please do something about this before the regulators get involved um before laws are passed. Maybe they need to be passed anyway to be honest at this point because I'm not sure this kind of like um tight iron grip on data is something that's going to be changing anytime soon, but it clearly needs to because certainly if we're looking at the end of physical media when it comes to game purchases, there are no alternative options anymore. And when you're talking about no alternative options, then you're getting quite close to monopolies. And that is where the state and regulators become involved.

[00:13:43]And uh yeah, I think ultimately there's also just um the concept of just being fair and equitable to your users, right?

[00:13:52]It's just basic good business at that point. So yeah, please do something about it because we're just going to see more cases like this, more apparent hypocrisy um and and untruths. It's just not a good look going into the next generation. Um, I haven't really got too much more to say about this, but our supporters do. So, Alexander Xeanov, uh, big business will always prioritize profit, and if we want them to do something proconsumer, it needs to be written in the law. Um, Arlay writes, "Not really a question. Just wanted to add to the discussion." Earlier this week, a Brazilian who sued Microsoft over a deleted account and the loss of access to his games won the lawsuit.

[00:14:34]Microsoft was ordered to restore his account and pay damages. It's terrifying that something like this can happen, but I'm glad the corporation wasn't allowed to simply do as they please without consequences. Yeah, I mean that's the other thing, right? Um, uh, lawsuits will happen, legal precedents will be in place unless there is sort of a proactive attempt by the platform holders to sort this out. Teasing hilarity on the topic of permanently eliminating physical in favor of digital. I think regulation is essential if the gaming public are to be loo uh are to be looked after. The quote unquote free market approach is demonstrabably not worked at this point with basics like perpetual access, offline access, transferability/inheritability/resalability and lendabil lendability generally MIA with a few peacemeal exceptions noted.

[00:15:22]The truth is with the exception of the PC market which is far from perfect there just isn't enough competition to rely on a market-based model delivering uh kback. I have a very important question. How long do you think Sony can go on being radio silent before they acknowledge the colossal dumpster fire they've created for themselves? Yeah, I mean, when this direct goes public, it would have been um presumably 19 days of radio silence from Sony when um basically the social media firestorm surrounding that um three paragraph blog has uh continues to um to cause problems for them on basically any kind of social media they put out. Um yeah, the Sony situation obviously, you know, I just want to stress again this whole concept of issues with digital quote unquote ownership or rather lack of it and lack of resource when things uh recourse rather when things go wrong. It's a it's a kind of industry-wide thing at the moment. Um but John, I'm quite curious about your answer to that question. How long do you think Sony can go on being radio silent before they acknowledge the colossal dumpster fire they've created for themselves?

[00:16:27]>> Forever.

[00:16:28]No, I actually I I don't know. Given how modern Sony operates, I could see a scenario in which they simply never acknowledge this. And >> the thing is that that strategy has actually worked for them.

[00:16:42]>> That's the problem. It does seem to work. And that's um that's actually an interesting this this got me thinking about the difference in approach between Microsoft and Sony a little bit, right?

[00:16:53]Uh, I think the Sony approach of being silent sucks, but for whatever reason, it seems to work. And every time Microsoft gets themselves tangled up in one of these situations, you feel like they're all kind of rushing to respond in some way, which is what you want, but usually the response isn't satisfactory, and it just creates more annoyance. I think in the case of Sony, any response from them would just make people angrier because I don't think they're going to walk it back anytime soon. I don't think they're going to walk it back period.

[00:17:28]And I do put a lot of this blame on the current leadership. Uh because when you actually look at their background, these are finance guys, man. Like they are there, they want those margins. They want to make that money. They don't give a about this. Like this is this is what they're here for. And I I think that's pretty much where we're at right now. And I don't see that they will reverse it. And when you consider all the talk about the handheld thing, right, and even rumors like, oh, it's going to be that's going to be the PS6.

[00:17:57]I'm not sure if that's going to be the case. But, uh, if the handheld plays a big part of their in their plan, then obviously discs aren't going to work there. The big problem here though where I think they really screwed up is one they don't Microsoft seems like they're going to have some kind of discto option. We don't know if Sony will and they've not said anything. So that's annoying. Two uh I don't think that they should have announced killing discs for PlayStation 5.

[00:18:26]>> They should have just rode that out. And I think when people see the handheld they would naturally be like oh well you know what what are you going to do right? like you're not going to use Blu-ray discs in a handheld. It would just be obvious that they're not going to produce discs for it. So, like I feel like they really just made themselves a giant mess here and made all of us angry. I'm angry. Um [clears throat] and I don't know how they get out of this. I I'd be curious to know. I suspect Rockstar was probably not too happy with them either given that, you know, Rockstar I don't think is inherently against physical media. I think the reasons they went with that for GTA 6 are probably uh different, right? But because this occurred so quickly after that announcement occurred, I think a lot of people also put blame on Rockstar >> and it not that it affected pre-orders, right? Of course, it's it's that's a game that's too big to fail, but still it brings some negativity their way that I'm sure they did not welcome [clears throat] and >> it's uh it makes it look like they're complicit in this and that they're the ones that are pushing for it, even though I do think it's completely unrelated.

[00:19:39]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Oliver, what's your take on this?

[00:19:43]>> Yeah. I don't know. John would be more plugged into this than I am. The current state of the online outrage because it seems like it is still significant. I mean, obviously a lot of people send that petition, but in terms of Sony actually changing their mind, I think that the when you actually look at where the pricing lies on retail games versus digital games and where the flows of money are heading, I think you can see that even if the physical market is a small percentage of game sales, Sony would really like it to be 0%. You know, I think that is pretty obvious and uh I don't expect them to change their minds about it necessarily unless there's some like overwhelming backlash they think they couldn't weather. And if they think the alternative would be those gamers not buying into the PlayStation ecosystem because for all Sony knows, and I'm sure they've done market research on this, those gamers could, many of them at least could well be headed onto PSN to buy their games from now on, right? Despite the outrage. So, I don't really know what that situation looks like, but if that's how it looks, I don't really see how Sony is incented to do too much different.

[00:20:49]>> Yeah. I mean, I was just looking at the petition there, the don't kill the disc petition. It's now at 325,000 signatures. Uh momentum slowing down slightly, but still 3,600 uh signed today. So, clearly, you know, a lot of people are still wanting to make their voice heard on this particular issue. Um it's interesting uh John that you were talking about Sony's sort of uh uh policy of not engaging right and um >> previously we've kind of criticized Microsoft for overengaging with with outrages and and stuff like that and um yeah but I think there is a time where you do actually you can't ignore the outrage you do have to actually uh respect the um the messages that you're being received from the audience.

[00:21:33]>> Yep.

[00:21:33]>> And you've got to do something. the concept of just sitting there and just carry on as if nothing has happened here. U I don't think it's acceptable, but I'm willing to bet they're still going to continue doing it.

[00:21:46]>> It's affecting other games, too, and that's that's a bummer. Like, I've seen people like trailers for indie games that have nothing to do with this, right? They're getting bombarded with with comments, and they've even had to turn off comments in a lot of their videos and such. And so, that's basically like Sony throwing their partners under a bus to some degree.