Germany’s Consumer Protection Agency Not Happy With Valve

Terms of Service are three words that make most consumers tune out and look the other way, but they are a necessary evil, particularly with online services such as Steam. Likely upon their lawyers finding another loophole, in a completely un-shocking move Valve changed Steam’s Terms of Service. The change prohibits any class action lawsuits, and for some reason German Consumer Protection Agency VZBV has suddenly decided to care about it.

Of course, like with any ToS agreement, if you don’t accept the agreement, you can't use Steam. The problem is that despite the fact you bought the games, you now cannot use the service required to play them…though of course, that's always been the penalty for not accepting a ToS.

Apparently the Consumer Protection Agency also doesn't like the fact that you can't transfer Steam accounts because it goes against a law that allows the re-selling of download digital software. If Valve doesn't comply by September 26th, the Agency will start the legal process – or in other words, Valve will be sued by VZBV on behalf of German Consumers.

It'll definitely be interesting to see how Valve responds to this. However, it's still unclear why Valve has been singled out all of a sudden as they are certainly not the first ones to change the ToS. How do you think Valve will handle this one?

Source: ScrewAttack