Xbox 360 owners concerned over Xbox Live privacy

Xbox 360 gamers using the Xbox Live friend-tracking system have expressed concern regarding the Xbox 360′s default privacy settings for Xbox Live, and the amount of information shared regarding their online and offline Xbox 360 activities.

The issue lies with the fact that the Xbox 360 not only shares information regarding games, such as which game a user is currently playing, achievements and the like, but also allows users to keep track of exactly what others are doing with their Xbox 360 console at any given time, such as viewing pictures, listening to music, watching a movie or similar.

Sharing gaming-related information over Xbox Live, such as which game a user is currently playing, is clearly useful and necessary for gamers who wish to play online against both friends and strangers.

Many gamers argue, however, that unwittingly sharing information about their non-gaming activities is unnecessary and could even be seen as an invasion of their privacy.

Unless specifically disabled, gamers are able to see exactly what another user is up to simply by pulling up their profile when they’re connected to Xbox Live.

If this feature was only able to be accessed by people in a user’s friends list, it may be a little more acceptable, however, anyone a user has played with recently is able to pull up his/her profile and check out what they’re doing at that moment.

Although it is possible to adjust privacy settings to determine exactly who can track your Xbox 360 activities, some gamers would like to see the default privacy settings changed so that Xbox 360 users must explicitly choose to give other users the level of access they currently have by default.

Source: Hexus

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