Due to policy changes, we will be withholding the names of characters that have been permanently banned.
These numbers only show the total amount of characters permanently banned between the dates: 03/30/2017 - 04/05/2017
We will continue to post the number of characters permanently banned on a weekly basis.
We appreciate the continued support of players to address hackers in-game!
Does it matter? does that somehow invalidate the "real" IGNs?
No, but as I pointed out on the subreddit, it gets spammy and disorganized, and we have a limited character count in posts; 3000~ish advertisers times around 6 characters in a name would take more than 5 posts just to provide for them all. Previously the posts were only useful for CTRL+F and searching for a specific user, without providing any sort of metadata like the total numbers banned. This is much cleaner.
Does it matter? does that somehow invalidate the "real" IGNs?
No, but as I pointed out on the subreddit, it gets spammy and disorganized, and we have a limited character count in posts; 3000~ish advertisers times around 6 characters in a name would take more than 5 posts just to provide for them all. Previously the posts were only useful for CTRL+F and searching for a specific user, without providing any sort of metadata like the total numbers banned. This is much cleaner.
I'm not interested in cleanliness, I'm interested in full transparency.
There is no valid reason for these lists to be posted on the forums instead of the News Section of the site that they had been for years upon years upon years.
Thanks for trying, but this is as meaningless as the recurring "we ban thousands of hackers every week" statement.
If I want to know whether the hacker I reported has been banned, I still have to go check rankings.
If you're only going to post statistics, at least make them more detailed. Give us a breakdown by worlds, by classes, by level ranges. Tell us how many were banned as a result of a report being investigated, as opposed to random finds by patrolling GMs. Would also be interesting to know how many reports you got that week, for how many distinct accounts, how many were investigated, and how many resulted in bans. Tell us how many of the banned were easily-replaced meso-farming bots, and how many were people hacking or botting on a "real" character. And so on.
But at the very least, count accounts, rather than characters.
I like the idea of a world breakdown. It seems Luna doesn't really have any GM's patrolling at all and it would be nice to know if that is true or not.
I like the idea of a world breakdown. It seems Luna doesn't really have any GM's patrolling at all and it would be nice to know if that is true or not.
Unlike EMS, GMS does not have visible GMs anywhere. I've been playing nearly 9 years now, nearly every day, and have never encountered a GM "in the wild" (i.e., not a pre-announced GM event). And we have always had meso-selling bots spamming. So I don't think Luna is any worse off than the NA servers.
But yes, a breakdown by world would still be nice to have.
We should appreciate this, this is a step in the good direction, more openness.
It would be nice though if more specific information would be made public too, but remember every step is one.
When you consider that they used to post the full list of banned igns every two weeks, first on the website and then later in the (old) forums, this may be a step forward from nothing but it's still not even caught up to where it was.
We should appreciate this, this is a step in the good direction, more openness.
It would be nice though if more specific information would be made public too, but remember every step is one.
When you consider that they used to post the full list of banned igns every two weeks, first on the website and then later in the (old) forums, this may be a step forward from nothing but it's still not even caught up to where it was.
I mean, if Nexon decided to change its privacy policies - you can't really go and blame the people who effect this kind of change.
From a corporate standpoint, it's probably less hassle to not post names or w.e - and it's very hard to argue with people in suits.
Privacy is becoming a huge thing, and it's probably smart to have this change done before it's a problem.
"Personal Information. When you use our Services, we may collect and store personally identifiable information that you have directly provided on a voluntary basis. Personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person." (AKA "Nicknames(s)")
"10. CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS AND DO NOT TRACK DISCLOSURES
California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 permits customers of Nexon who are residents of the State of California, United States of America to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes."
Legally speaking, anybody who resides in California who has submitted such a request would have a legal cause to sue and have charges pressed.
Believe me, privacy is huge, and while you may think it arbitrary I can tell you without a doubt that it's a smart move not to release anything that could lead to somebody being bullied or threatened online.
IGNs are not "relating to an identified or identifiable natural person."
e-mail addresses are, and are what Nexon is not supposed to give third parties for marketing purposes.
And the link I gave shows you that the previous CM was supposed to post the full ban lists, and the only thing stopping him was the character limit.
It's possible that Nexon has changed its policy in 4 months. But it's a lot more likely that they still haven't figured out a way to get around the character limit, and decided to just post the totals so they can have something to point to when saying "we ban thousands of hackers every week."
IGNs are not "relating to an identified or identifiable natural person."
e-mail addresses are, and are what Nexon is not supposed to give third parties for marketing purposes.
And the link I gave shows you that the previous CM was supposed to post the full ban lists, and the only thing stopping him was the character limit.
It's possible that Nexon has changed its policy in 4 months. But it's a lot more likely that they still haven't figured out a way to get around the character limit, and decided to just post the totals so they can have something to point to when saying "we ban thousands of hackers every week."
The character limit is actually a simple line of code in the forum software.
A IGN could be a nickname - if one chooses it to be so.
A Third-Party is anyone who isn't bound to the contract, not just marketing firms.
I agreed to the Privacy statement when I made my account, that Nexon Provided. You weren't involved in MY agreement hence them releasing to you MY nickname makes you a third party. This is simple contract law.
While I understand that you want to be quick to jump on everything, my point was that it was a smart move for them not to - and any council would advise the same. I would advise my clients to not publish any likeness of a name of somebody without their explicit consent to do so. It's just bad business.
By the same token, the rankings are a violation of privacy.
In fact, the ability to see other people's IGNs in-game, not to mention guild rosters or Mu Lung Dojo rankings, are violations of privacy.
The privacy policy does not forbid Nexon from "releasing" the information that IGN "AlexF" exists, along with all sorts of game data associated with it, such as its level, its guild, and, yes, whether it is banned or not.
What they are not allowed to release is any of the identifying information you gave when creating your account, and of course no association of the IGN with any such information (nor other information they might learn from your IP address or the NGS they run in your computer).
And why would KThxBaiNao randomly lie on the subreddit about the reason for not posting the ban lists? (Note that he made his post there long before this thread was created here)
While I understand that you want to be seen as a Nexon defender in light of your VFM application, my point is that you don't have to imitate the existing VFM's in trying to make up reasons for why Nexon does what it does. The opening post of this thread never mentioned "privacy", so why do you bring it up?
It's possible that Nexon has changed its policy in 4 months. But it's a lot more likely that they still haven't figured out a way to get around the character limit, and decided to just post the totals so they can have something to point to when saying "we ban thousands of hackers every week."
Our team was open towards creating multiple posts due to the character limit to list the names of all the hackers.
However, as stated in the original post, our policy change prevents us from releasing the names of all the characters that were banned to the public.
Comments
Botting / Hacking - They are catching these people and banning them for good.
Advertising - I see a lot of this in FM and glad that they are taking these out of the game
Account Theft - I am surprised to see only 9 compared to back in the years that it was more frequently.
The list of names were often inaccurate anyway so this type of overview is enough.
Maybe it's because the majority of these banned IGNs have spammy names
The names were super inaccurate! I remember seeing someone who was banned a good 6 months earlier on several later lists.
Does it matter? does that somehow invalidate the "real" IGNs?
No, but as I pointed out on the subreddit, it gets spammy and disorganized, and we have a limited character count in posts; 3000~ish advertisers times around 6 characters in a name would take more than 5 posts just to provide for them all. Previously the posts were only useful for CTRL+F and searching for a specific user, without providing any sort of metadata like the total numbers banned. This is much cleaner.
I'm not interested in cleanliness, I'm interested in full transparency.
There is no valid reason for these lists to be posted on the forums instead of the News Section of the site that they had been for years upon years upon years.
If I want to know whether the hacker I reported has been banned, I still have to go check rankings.
If you're only going to post statistics, at least make them more detailed. Give us a breakdown by worlds, by classes, by level ranges. Tell us how many were banned as a result of a report being investigated, as opposed to random finds by patrolling GMs. Would also be interesting to know how many reports you got that week, for how many distinct accounts, how many were investigated, and how many resulted in bans. Tell us how many of the banned were easily-replaced meso-farming bots, and how many were people hacking or botting on a "real" character. And so on.
But at the very least, count accounts, rather than characters.
It would be nice though if more specific information would be made public too, but remember every step is one.
Unlike EMS, GMS does not have visible GMs anywhere. I've been playing nearly 9 years now, nearly every day, and have never encountered a GM "in the wild" (i.e., not a pre-announced GM event). And we have always had meso-selling bots spamming. So I don't think Luna is any worse off than the NA servers.
But yes, a breakdown by world would still be nice to have.
When you consider that they used to post the full list of banned igns every two weeks, first on the website and then later in the (old) forums, this may be a step forward from nothing but it's still not even caught up to where it was.
Privacy has nothing to do with it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Maplestory/comments/6346ky/cant_find_the_official_permanent_ban_list_on_forum/
IGNs are not "relating to an identified or identifiable natural person."
e-mail addresses are, and are what Nexon is not supposed to give third parties for marketing purposes.
And the link I gave shows you that the previous CM was supposed to post the full ban lists, and the only thing stopping him was the character limit.
It's possible that Nexon has changed its policy in 4 months. But it's a lot more likely that they still haven't figured out a way to get around the character limit, and decided to just post the totals so they can have something to point to when saying "we ban thousands of hackers every week."
By the same token, the rankings are a violation of privacy.
In fact, the ability to see other people's IGNs in-game, not to mention guild rosters or Mu Lung Dojo rankings, are violations of privacy.
The privacy policy does not forbid Nexon from "releasing" the information that IGN "AlexF" exists, along with all sorts of game data associated with it, such as its level, its guild, and, yes, whether it is banned or not.
What they are not allowed to release is any of the identifying information you gave when creating your account, and of course no association of the IGN with any such information (nor other information they might learn from your IP address or the NGS they run in your computer).
And why would KThxBaiNao randomly lie on the subreddit about the reason for not posting the ban lists? (Note that he made his post there long before this thread was created here)
While I understand that you want to be seen as a Nexon defender in light of your VFM application, my point is that you don't have to imitate the existing VFM's in trying to make up reasons for why Nexon does what it does. The opening post of this thread never mentioned "privacy", so why do you bring it up?
Our team was open towards creating multiple posts due to the character limit to list the names of all the hackers.
However, as stated in the original post, our policy change prevents us from releasing the names of all the characters that were banned to the public.