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Following over a week of silence when it was uncovered that two YouTubers with millions of subscribers had ownership interests in a site they repeatedly promoted without full disclosure, video game developer Valve has finally spoken out.
That company issued this statement:
They will now begin cracking down on gambling sites that utilize Steam.
“These sites have basically pieced together their operations in two-part fashion. First, they are using the OpenID API as a way for users to prove ownership of their Steam accounts and items. Any other information they obtain about a user’s Steam account is either manually disclosed by the user or obtained from the user’s Steam Community profile (when the user has chosen to make their profile public). Second, they create automated Steam accounts that make the same web calls as individual Steam users.”
“Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity.”
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
