Riot Games privacy policy updated: now easier to read

Riot·Sep 16, 2015·2 votes·23,722 views

We’re making a few changes to the Riot Games privacy policy and wanted to let you know what’s changing and why.

Starting on October 16, we’re replacing our current privacy policy (available here) with an updated version, which you can read in full here. After that date, your use of League of Legends and other Riot services will be covered by our new policy. Here’s what’s changing:

We’re making it easier to read. Documents like these can be overwhelming, full of dense language and endless legal clauses. In the revised policy, we’ve used more straightforward language that’s easier to read and understand. We’ve added section summaries, interactive elements, and more to help guide your review. There’s also now an entire section detailing the choices and controls you have to further protect your privacy.
We’re updating it to cover new features. Features like Add Friend are new to League, and they need to be covered by our privacy policy. Our new policy reflects these new features and more accurately (and clearly) explains how we’ll process info to support them.
We’re setting it up for future growth and development. Riot continues to grow and offer new types of experiences (like mobile apps and websites), and we continue to grow internationally - the new policy reflects that. Some changes in the policy also allow us to use industry standard advertising practices and to better surface content that’s relevant to players based on their preferences.

We know privacy is very important to many players. It’s important to us, too. Our goal with updating our privacy policy is to provide players with transparency and choice. We’ve simplified the language and added context to make it easier to understand, and we’ve taken care to ensure players have meaningful choices to protect their privacy.

Riot’s legal team will be on hand until 4PM PDT to answer any questions you might have about the new policy in the comments below.

FAQ:

What is the Riot services privacy policy?

Our privacy policy explains what info Riot Games collects when you visit the Riot services (like League of Legends), as well as ways we might use or share it.
What’s changing?

To see all the changes, we suggest you take a look at the full policy - but here’s a quick rundown:

Most of the changes are aimed at making the policy easier to read, with straightforward language, section summaries, and interactive elements. There’s also now an entire section detailing the choices and controls you have to further protect your privacy.

The new policy also includes some changes to cover new and future functionality for Riot services: for instance, features like Friend Importer and mobile apps like Blitzcrank’s Poro Roundup are new territory for Riot, and need to be covered under our privacy policy.
When does the change take effect?

The new policy will take effect on October 16.
Why are you changing the privacy policy?

Our goal with updating our privacy policy is to provide players with transparency and choice. We’ve simplified the language and added context to make it easier to understand, and we’ve taken care to ensure players have meaningful choices to protect their privacy. Besides accessibility, we also needed to update the privacy policy to cover new and future functionality for Riot services - it’s been awhile since we last updated our privacy policy, and these are frequently-updated documents that reflect a company’s present day operations.
What can I do to further protect my privacy?

Our new privacy policy includes a section detailing the choices and controls you have to further protect your privacy.
How do I accept or reject the new policy?

The new policy applies to playing League of Legends or using Riot services after the effective date - if you play League of Legends or use any Riot services after that date, it’ll be covered under the new policy.

42 Comments

ButtaYeSep 16, 201514 votes

RiotMutaciousSep 16, 201518 votes

Rammus

VinhBladeSep 16, 20154 votes

Will it also applies to other language texts? Such as Vietnamese, Spanish, etc.

RiotMutaciousSep 16, 20153 votes

Great question! This announcement only applies to NA players currently, but we're working on rolling out the updated policy in other regions too. Keep an eye on the official League sites for your region for more details.

Heil The ExileSep 16, 20153 votes

Will this effect any gameplay and if so how?

RiotMutaciousSep 16, 20154 votes

We're not changing the gameplay itself, just trying to better describe what data we collect and how we use it.

Heil The ExileSep 16, 20153 votes

ok thank you I was just worried about how it would affect the stability and possibly the game it self

RiotMutaciousSep 16, 20154 votes

No problem! The policy update shouldn't impact game stability or game play :)

kingSHSep 18, 20153 votes

Please don't give ban for leaving 3 games give a high ban after leaving 3 bans

SevetarSep 16, 20153 votes

ok Rammus ok Rammus

Peyote CoyoteSep 18, 20151 votes

ok. Rammus

DrewskeySep 16, 20157 votes

Easier to read. As if i read would read it anyways

NancehSep 16, 20157 votes

This update makes the policy more organized and easier to search for specific things. Thanks you for this!

RiotMutaciousSep 16, 20154 votes

Awesome! This was one of our main goals, so we're glad to hear the feedback :)

CosnirakSep 16, 20157 votes

Thank you! Awesome job being transparent and upfront about this sort of thing. I appreciate it.

Under section IV 'Third Party Websites And Services' in the subsection titles 'Third-Party Tracking' the last sentence is missing the word "for" between 'they’re' and 'responsible'. ;)

RiotMutaciousSep 16, 20154 votes

Thank you for the feedback, and great catch on that oversight in Section IV -- I'll make sure we get that corrected :)

CraftMasterKeenSep 16, 20155 votes

Good now Rito wont be permabanned for using Latin in their terms

OdaswifteyeSep 16, 20154 votes

A buff to the privacy policy.

FlukenuxSep 17, 20154 votes

Areas that could use improvement to be more customer friendly or less confusing:

Section IV on Third-party websites and services: Despite claiming that this update should make the privacy policy easy to understand, this section is still written like a blank check. Not only is the reader supposed to read each of the associated third-party privacy policies but it is also left to each reader to determine what third-party services even are and where the privacy policy is posted. In the examples of PayPal and Facebook, it is usually at least obvious from the content of a webpage what associated service is used. But that isn't always the case as the "Third-party tracking" opens the door to passive tracking of services not stated on the web page. For example, the privacy policy web page itself uses Google Tag Manager. Where is it made clear for an average user on the web page that Google Tag Manager is used and where to get the privacy policy related to it?

There should be a link to another Riot document which lists known third-parties and links directly to their related privacy policies. It would be perfectly understandable if the page provided notices of a caveat that the list is provided as a best effort and may be incomplete or that links may become out of date. However, in the context of making the privacy policy easier, Riot should at least make a best-effort to do some of the leg work of informing what third parties are used. They should also provide an email address for users to submit correction with the promise that corrections will be handled within 5 business days.

Section V on International Data Processing: Under the old privacy policy provided members of North America a dispute escalation process when an issue is unresolved after 30 days. New privacy policy has no cap on how long the process should take or even a stated form of escalation for the NA region. Instead, it is implied the TRUSTe dispute process is made available to EU members only. However, the TRUSTe logo appears on na.leagueoflegends.com and is stated to help with best practices of na.lolesports.com (shouldn't they then also be handling complaints involving na.lolesports.com?).

Ultimately, I think the updated privacy policy may encourage USA members to go the FTC or lawyer route given the lack of stated escalation process. I don't see how this would be to Riot's benefit.

Section X on Updates and Revisions: It has become standard practice with the privacy policy of other sites to state a 30 day review period will always be provided. While Riot is providing a 30 day review period of this specific update, nothing in the privacy policy states that future review periods may end up being much shorter.

RiotMutaciousSep 17, 20154 votes

You've hit on some really interesting points with this post. Thanks for the thoughtful comments, analysis, and suggestions!

Tons of food for thought here -- not sure I'll be able to address everything properly in this context, but I've tried to clarify at least a bit further below. Please be sure to reach out to us at [email protected] if you have further questions :)

They should also provide an email address for users to submit correction with the promise that corrections will be handled within 5 business days.

Players can always reach out to us with privacy-related questions or concerns at [email protected]. Section VIII of the updated policy contains more details on requests to access, delete, or update personal info.

**Under the old privacy policy provided members of North America a dispute escalation process when an issue is unresolved after 30 days. New privacy policy has no cap on how long the process should take or even a stated form of escalation for the NA region. **

Note that the updated policy expressly incorporates by reference our terms of use, and explains that this means TOU's dispute resolution provisions apply to your use of our services. Be sure to check out terms of use (e.g., Section XV) for important details about dispute resolution procedures and timelines!

While Riot is providing a 30 day review period of this specific update, nothing in the privacy policy states that future review periods may end up being much shorter.

We're committed to keeping our players informed about the ways we collect and use data. That's not changing with this update.

However, the amount of notice we provide in the event of future modifications is likely to depend on the kind of changes we're making. While it's super important for companies to provide a lot of prior notice in the event of material changes to the ways they handle info, that's not going to be the case for every privacy policy update. For example, a full 30 day notice period may not be as appropriate for changes as simple as modifying Riot's basic contact information (like the email address where you can contact us with privacy questions, or changing the mailing address of an office in the "Contact Us" section).

In other words, the amount and type of notice we provide for future updates may depend on the nature of the changes we're making.

VikíngSep 16, 20153 votes

What is this "Friend Importer"?

RiotHeintzerSep 16, 20154 votes

Sorry for the poor clarity on that - we're referring to the functionality that lets you connect with your friends on Facebook in League: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/find-your-irl-friends-league

AbracadabaSep 17, 20153 votes

I read the whole thing. They provide SOME EXAMPLES of what kind of personal info they might collect, but they DON'T list ALL the personal info they are ACTUALLY collecting from us.

RiotMutaciousSep 17, 20151 votes

Thank you for reading the full policy and for your feedback. Much appreciated -- hopefully I can help to clarify a bit :)

We've listed the most common examples of personal info we collect from players in an effort to be as transparent as possible, while keeping the policy to a manageable length (so it's also as accessible and relevant to as many players as possible, which is one of our primary goals of this update). However, the exact types of info we collect usually depend on how you choose to use our products and services.

We'll collect registration info if you choose to create an account, but we also allow folks who are interested to access parts of our services without an account. Similarly, we might collect certain types of personal info in really limited circumstances that don't apply to a majority of players (such as info we're required to collect for tax purposes if you win a big prize in one of our contests).

In other words, we've focused on the most common examples to help make the policy as useful as possible for as many players as possible. Please note you can always contact us at [email protected] with specific privacy-related questions or concerns too!

SUNBURST96Sep 16, 20152 votes

I;m not going to read it but, im willing to bet its not good..at least for us. Riot will make money out of it all kinz of money.

VikíngSep 16, 20151 votes

[deleted]

SUNBURST96Sep 16, 20151 votes

Quick, this comment was posted 1 minute ago, STFU

VikíngSep 16, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Quick, this comment was posted 1 minute ago, STFU

It was not referring to your comment, when I typed mine, there were no comments yet lol.

SUNBURST96Sep 16, 20151 votes

[deleted]

CraftMasterKeenSep 16, 20152 votes

permabanned RIP SUNBURST69

SUNBURST96Sep 16, 20151 votes

for wht i care

DerpyStickmanSep 17, 20151 votes

when will Riven be available again? plz ;-; i like my riven

BH WARLOCKSep 17, 20151 votes

im not sure what "choices" i have. haven't you seen south park? nobody reads the terms and conditions.

Ninjazz01Sep 17, 20151 votes

item 3070 I got hacked

Skeleton14Sep 18, 20151 votes

u updating policy on my birthday lol nice :D

kayimboSep 24, 20151 votes

Since it seems like you guys are actually reading the comments, who at riot decided to partner with coca-cola? It seems like you're big enough you could like, choose carefully who you partner with. Did the chinese masters force u to give kids diabetes because coke gave an extra million or something?

Logic GatesSep 25, 20151 votes

It was lagging hard recently like OMG.I was reported for AFK from the keyboard and I was in the low matchmade queue.I got 5 at first but I got another 5 later.Rage.

logiicdnOct 8, 20151 votes

i played this game a lot but then i had to move and i wasn't able to play. now i tried going on i got all the updates and it says i am permanently suspended! Someone tell me why please.