Thoughts on deleting my Microsoft account, including my Minecraft license?

Privacy Questions
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I haven’t played Minecraft since 2015, but I get the feeling I might again in the new few years as I wanna find new hobbies. I know that game has changed a whole lot but I don’t have any official online data on it.

I’ve had this Microsoft account for over a decade and its probably full of personal information that I wanna let go of, I’ve already exported all my data. I would need to pay $30 for another copy of Minecraft, same price I paid in 2013. I just did a bunch of searching and its not possible to transfer my Minecraft license to another account.

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Luanti (formerly Minetest) with VoxeLibre (formerly MineClone 2) is actually pretty close to Minecraft of when you last played and still fun with some friends.

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If you are going to use the same personal details, there really isn’t any point.

I am actually going to the opposite direction and maybe consider opening my computer to more Microsoft games, specifically for the Doom games and maybe some of the Bethesda ones, especially when the big TES6 gets out.

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Maybe just clean it up, it seems like a much healthier choice.

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We should not be encouraging piracy, be it for legal reasons and potential consequences. Prism Launcher is a good third party launcher that can be easily bypassed without using shady forks with a simple search online.

Edit: The comment I was responding to seems to be gone.

Well, as for the main post, if you’re going to play Minecraft anyways, better to keep the account I think. They have your data already and will likely keep it in the future even if you delete it. You can use third party launchers that disable the tracking that Minecraft does, though you’ll need to trust the people behind it. Personally I use PrismLauncher, seems to be a good one.

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The fork i referenced is very shady yes. It literally just removes the prismlauncher DRM. You can do a diff on the source code to find out.

Since OP already bought the game once, i challenge you to demonstrate the harm of them pirating the game.
And even if it was harming Microsoft, who in their right mind would care? Its one of the nastiest companies in terms of privacy. Its not worth supporting them.

They have your data already and will likely keep it in the future even if you delete it.

Maybe you should also stop spreading false info.

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You don’t need a fork to bypass the DRM in Prism Launcher, and compromise on security of your system by trusting yet another third party. Not that it’s all that relevant to this post, this is about thoughts of closing their Microsoft account and seemingly re-buying Minecraft (maybe for multiplayer which can be blocked by server owners if you’re on a cracked client.)

This is not about morals or ethics, but rather about the issue of encouraging something that will get the forum in trouble, be it now or at a later point.

Fine, let’s check their privacy policy and terms and conditions! They’re not clear about this at all, but seeing the Terms and Conditions in the section 4 sub-section g, they say

we will delete Data or Your Content associated with your Service or will otherwise disassociate it from you and your Microsoft account (unless we are required by law to keep it, return it or transfer it to you or a third party identified by you)

So they claim they will delete or “disassociate” your data, which they probably do, but law varies per country however it can be expected that they keep any transactions you’ve made. And on their Privacy Policy they mention something similar too:

We share your personal data with your consent or to complete any transaction or provide any product you have requested or authorized. We also share data with Microsoft-controlled affiliates and subsidiaries; with vendors working on our behalf; when required by law or to respond to legal process; to protect our customers; to protect lives; to maintain the security of our products; and to protect the rights and property of Microsoft and its customers.

Digging through all their policies and terms and whatever is such a pain as none of it is explicitly clear. If anyone else can clear this up that would be great. Overall, they say they delete it, in my opinion I doubt it heavily, but they legally cannot delete every piece of data they have on you unless you live in a country that demands no data from businesses and you.

I would not bother with deleting the Microsoft account, but rather deleting what data they allow you to delete and just clean it up. If you want to try making some form of an anonymous Microsoft account you may be able to buy Minecraft as a gift card and activate it on a non-identifiable Microsoft account, that is if they don’t ask for a phone number, I’m unsure. I don’t know if deleting the Microsoft account will actually be deleting it, as I’ve seen mentioned a 30-60 day period where the account is “closed” rather than deleted so you can recover it in their terms and conditions.

When you ask us to close your Microsoft account, you can choose to put it in a suspended state for either 30 or 60 days just in case you change your mind. After that 30- or 60-day period, your Microsoft account will be closed.

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This is not about morals or ethics, but rather about the issue of encouraging something that will get the forum in trouble, be it now or at a later point.

It can only be prohibited on the base of ethics here because its not illegal to talk about it or mention tools. The largest piracy communities online talk about all this stuff, and the discourse itself not copyright infringement. Neither is directing people towards doing the act.

Fine, let’s check their privacy policy and terms and conditions! They’re not clear about this at all, but seeing the Terms and Conditions in the section 4 sub-section g, they say

Its only “not clear” to you because it directly contradicts your claim. Also love how you do the most unrealistic bad-faith interpretation based on the policy. Its not shameful to admit when you’re wrong.

Overall, they say they delete it, in my opinion I doubt it heavily

So your argument is that you just don’t believe it…
Even after you literally provided the legally binding proof that they do.

I would not bother with deleting the Microsoft account, but rather deleting what data they allow you to delete and just clean it up.

That just goes against basic logic. Any data that you can delete from the UI will be deleted when they close your account. And a BUNCH of additional data as well that you can’t delete manually.

You’d rather just let them retain everything forever.

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Fair enough, however I can’t see that comment you made so there’s likely still a reason not to directly lead people to resources for piracy.

Correct, I do not trust companies as I believe they inherently go against our best wishes. If they want my trust, make it explicitly clear. I think companies should be assumed to be abusing their privacy policies and terms.

That mainly stems from them sharing your data to other parties, they can’t exactly delete that, so I expected a more in depth privacy policy especially when it (seems to?) apply to all their services. Maybe I was expecting the wrong thing. And the question is also how would this work when re-creating an account? Which is what I was (not clearly) referring to.

Yes, I have not deemed this sufficient evidence for trust, but I left my opinion out of this (very poorly seems like, sorry about that) as this may be enough for others to believe that it’s the best choice for them.

Maybe. You’re likely right about that, but is it worth the $30 if we’re assuming they’ll be re-buying Minecraft?

Yeah, I want them to retain data forever, illegally that is. Of course, retaining no data would be perfect, but I think the next best thing is to make more reasons for change.

Anyways. I apologise for not being clear at all about this, I’ve been referring to in the context of answering this topic where this person wants to clean up their data but also play Minecraft. And I’ve clearly done a poor job of being nuanced. Thanks for being in this argument (or conversation, whatever the proper terminology is) though!

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Generally speaking, as long as you don’t endorse it as a solution or claim it on behalf of PG as an organization, limited discussion on piracy is okay as long it relates to privacy or security.

Our main concern is not getting people in trouble. Piracy is already off-topic as it is, there are a lot of other forums where it can be discussed more freely.

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12

I have the same conundrum with my Steam account. Over a decade old and all my purchases have my billing address. I’m still using it because I’m pretty sure you can’t transfer games from one account to another. So ultimately, it depends on how much you value your account. Since you might pick up the game again, I would just use the same MS account. Just change or remove all personal information that can be edited.

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Thanks for being a good sport.

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