Step 3 of 5
Reading the account terms, the privacy notice and the classification
Before an online game exists on your computer, it asks you to agree to things. This step shows you how to read the three documents involved in about half an hour in total, looking for a fixed set of items rather than reading every line.
Three documents, three different jobs
The first is the account agreement, often called terms of service or an end-user licence agreement. It is a contract between you and the publisher about what you may do with the software and the account, and what they may do about it if you break the rules.
The second is the privacy notice, sometimes called a privacy policy. It is a description of what personal information the publisher collects, why, who else sees it, and how long it is kept.
The third is not written by the publisher at all: the classification, which in Australia comes from the Australian Classification Board, together with the short consumer advice that accompanies it. It tells you what kind of content is in the game, decided by someone with no stake in selling it.
Reading all three fully would take an afternoon. Reading each for a short list of specific items takes ten minutes, and that is the method below. Use your browser's find function, because these documents are long and their headings are rarely helpful.
The account agreement: five things to find
One: what you actually have. Search for the word "licence" or "license". Nearly every game grants you a limited, revocable licence to use the software rather than selling you a copy. This is normal, and worth knowing before you think of an account as property.
Two: what gets an account suspended. Search for "suspend", "terminate" and "prohibited". You are looking for the behaviour list, and for whether purchases are refunded if the account is closed for breaking the rules. The usual answer is that they are not.
Three: whether accounts may be shared, sold or transferred. Search for "transfer" and "sell". Most agreements forbid selling an account, which matters because a market for accounts exists anyway and buying one usually breaks the agreement you are about to accept.
Four: what happens to purchases. Search for "virtual" and "refund". In-game currency and items are typically licensed, not owned, and may be withdrawn when a service closes. Whether you find that acceptable is your decision; it should be an informed one.
Five: which law applies, and what rights survive it. Search for "governing law". Many agreements nominate a foreign court. In Australia, that nomination does not remove the consumer guarantees you have under the Australian Consumer Law, and the ACCC explains those guarantees in plain English. An agreement cannot contract out of them, however it is worded.
The privacy notice: five more
One: what is collected at sign-up. Usually an email address, a chosen display name, a password and a country. Some publishers also ask for a date of birth, which is often used to apply age-based settings.
Two: what is collected while you play. Expect your IP address, device and hardware details, session times, in-game actions, and chat or voice data where those features exist. Search for "automatically" to find this part, which is usually longer than the sign-up part.
Three: who else receives it. Search for "third part" and "share". Payment processors, cloud hosts, anti-cheat providers and analytics companies are the common recipients. Advertising partners appear in some notices and not in others.
Four: where it is stored. Search for "transfer" or the name of a country. A game available in Australia will very often store data overseas, which is lawful and worth knowing.
Five: how to get a copy or have it deleted. Search for "access", "delete" and "request". A good notice names an email address or a form, and a time frame.
The Australian framework behind all of this is the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, published by the OAIC. The OAIC also handles privacy complaints when an organisation covered by the Act will not resolve one. Whether a particular overseas publisher is covered is a legal question this course cannot answer for you; the OAIC's own material is the place to start.
While you are in the habit
The same five questions work on any service's privacy notice, including this site's. Ours is short because the site collects almost nothing: you can read it at Privacy Policy and check our answers against the method you have just learned.
The classification and the consumer advice
Computer games distributed in Australia are classified under the national classification scheme, and the classification appears with short consumer advice naming the content that drove it — references to violence, language, themes, or the presence of in-game purchases. The Australian Classification Board publishes a searchable database of classified titles.
Look the game up there rather than relying on a storefront badge or on this course. Classifications are decided per title and can differ from the ratings used in other countries, so an overseas review site is not a substitute. This course deliberately states no rating and no age threshold for any specific game, because the Board's own record is the only accurate source and it can be revised.
Read the consumer advice line as well as the letter. Two games with the same classification can differ substantially in what they contain, and the advice line is where that difference is named.
If somebody under 18 will be playing
Three things are worth setting before a young person starts rather than after. First, the operating system's own family controls, which can limit installation, screen time and purchases; Microsoft and Apple both document theirs. Second, the game's own privacy and chat settings, which usually allow voice and text chat to be restricted. Third, the payment method, which is the subject of the next section.
The eSafety Commissioner publishes free guidance for parents and carers on online gaming, including how to approach chat with strangers and how to report serious abuse. It is written for an Australian audience and is a better starting point than general advice from overseas.
A game that sells randomised items for money is not something to hand to a child without a conversation about it. This course does not present purchasable randomised items or anything resembling gambling as suitable for a minor, and if the classification's consumer advice mentions in-game purchases, treat that as the signal to go and read how they work.
Payment details, refunds and your consumer guarantees
You do not need to enter a payment method to create an account on a free-to-play game, and the safest habit is not to store one at all until you have decided to spend something. If you do, a method with a low limit — a prepaid or low-limit card — bounds the damage from an accidental or unauthorised purchase better than a primary account does.
If a purchase goes wrong, you have two separate routes. The publisher's own refund policy is the first, and it is in the account agreement you read above. The consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law are the second, and they apply to digital products supplied to consumers in Australia regardless of what a publisher's policy says; the ACCC sets out what they cover and how to escalate.
The scam patterns that cluster around popular games
Popular games attract people who want your account. The patterns are stable enough to list: a site offering free in-game currency in exchange for your login; a message claiming your account will be deleted unless you confirm your password; an offer to trade items that requires you to sign in somewhere other than the publisher's own domain; and a "support agent" in chat asking for your password or a one-time code.
The rule that covers all of them is that legitimate support never needs your password or your authentication code. Scamwatch publishes current warnings and takes reports, and the Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes free guidance on multi-factor authentication, which is the single measure that most reduces the value of a stolen password.
The example household at Step 3
Hypothetical example
Our invented household spends one evening on this step. They read the account agreement for the five items, and note on their sheet that purchases are not refunded if an account is closed for a rules breach. They read the privacy notice and note that play data is stored overseas. They look the title up in the Classification Board's database and write down the classification and the consumer advice line exactly as published. Then they agree that the teenager plays with voice chat off, and that no card will be stored on the account. Nothing here is a claim about any product; it is a record of what they read.
What this course cannot tell you
We do not restate the contents of any publisher's terms or privacy notice, because those documents are revised and a summary written months ago would mislead you. We state no classification for any specific title. For the game used as this course's example, the description we were given names only that it is an online game with a well-known brand and that a commission is paid when a reader registers, confirms their email address and logs in. Everything else about it — its terms, its data practices, its classification, what it sells — comes from the vendor's own pages and the Board's database, which is where Step 3 sends you.
Paid link: Solid Facet is paid a commission by the affiliate network that operates the link if you register through it. Your cost does not change, and the ten questions above are the same either way.
Step 3 checklist
Work through these before Step 4
- Find the account agreement on the publisher's own site, and note the date it was last updated.
- Record what the licence grants you, and whether purchases survive an account closure.
- Record whether accounts may be shared, sold or transferred.
- Record which law the agreement nominates, and note that Australian consumer guarantees apply regardless.
- Find the privacy notice and record what is collected at sign-up and during play.
- Record who else receives the data, and in which countries it is stored.
- Record the stated way to request access to or deletion of your data.
- Look the title up in the Australian Classification Board's database and write down the classification and the consumer advice line.
- If anyone under 18 will play, set the operating system's family controls and decide the chat settings in advance.
- Decide not to store a payment method yet, and write that decision next to your spending figure from Step 1.
- Bookmark Scamwatch, and resolve now that no support request will ever get your password or a one-time code.
Before you move on
You should now know what you are agreeing to, what the publisher collects, what the Board says the game contains, and which Australian body to approach for a privacy complaint, a consumer complaint or a scam report. Step 4 is the practical one: an account, a confirmation email and a first practice session.