Steam is a company which provides an online based game service where you can buy games and then download them to play them. When Half-Life first came out, it was a CD based game, but shortly before the release of Half-Life 2, Valve (the makers) moved to using Steam to distribute their software. This forced everyone who wanted Half-Life 2 (including me as I had a CD-key which came with a graphics card) to use Steam to download the game.

About a week ago I decided to log back in to Steam after around 4 years of not using it, but I found that my account had been hacked… I wasn’t best pleased. Not only that, but I found from searching around the internet that I’m definitely not the only one to have had their account hacked and I won’t be the last (YouTube search for “steam hack” and you’ll see why).

So I requested Steam tell me how I can cancel my account as I feel that their security is not good enough for me to want my personal details stored with them. But I’ve currently been told that it is impossible for them to cancel a Steam account. So now I have the fun task of asking around various authorities in the UK to see what my rights are regarding the storage of personal information. With Steam being US based, I guess they are under different laws to over here in the UK, but I’m sure that there are similar rules. Bear in mind that in a Steam account you can enter your credit card details… I am so glad that I have never entered my credit card details into Steam!

Fun.