Privacy - Archive and Profile?

Can someone please point me to where I can read about how chess.com controls your profiles and archive data?

I have read the terms of service and the FAQs for the site but didnt find anything and essentially am researching because I played an online game that I realized after anyone can view, download etc.

What I would like is to be able to control who can view my profile and my data such as my archived games.

Can someone please point me to where I can get educated on how what I do on this site gets stored and what I can control or not?

Thanks.

It seems like that is not an option: all your games + forum content are public. Would be nice it was an option. Perhaps Chess.com will comment.

Thank you both for your replies thus far.

LisaV, I have checked my profile page (which you can also enter by clicking on your name, however the privacy settings don't allow you to change if you profile is public or not or really anything related to privacy or your information.  It mostly addresses how you can not be bothered by ppl you don't want to bother you with chats, invites and so on.  Nothing on controlling your data :( . Am I missing something?

Yes, Eric or whomever will comment on this and hopefully there is a way to restrict this :) ...

Not sure we can make games private on a games archive.

If for example LisaV and i played a game, even if i made all of my games private, people would still be able to view the game through LisaV's game history.

how to check my live chess ratings?

homepage / live chess

Its on that page before you enter live chess.

http://www.chess.com/livechess/myhome.html

Hello  - this doesn't address the OP question concerning privacy of games + forum content. Can you (or someone) please address the issue of privacy of this user generated content. This is our content and we should be able to control who is able to access it.

Not quite true. 

Chess.com is a web based community where we can play and discuss chess together. We have free will in coming here or not, but you can't expect to come here and have total control over something like this, much less claim it as a right.

It would be analogous to enlisting as a movie actor and subsequently demanding that your face be blurred and voice be scrambled, for privacy reasons. You can't expect it to happen, but you are free to not play the part.

If chess.com has decided that the games of users (who may have fake handles and don't have to share any information but a profile name and a site rating) are public and free for all to study, then that's a fine decision.

Of course it could be more clear that this is indeed the way the site works. I think it does, and I like it. 

tomjoad, it did address the question asked in post 7 though.

Did you read post 6 ?

I don't have the authourity to say what can, can't or won't be changed on the site.

Your profile is called a "public profile" in the settings, as such it is public to all.  This is not like Facebook where you can limit your profile to your friends etc etc. So it's either all or nothing I'm afraid.

Regarding games all archived games are technically visible to everyone, you cannot hide them.  For non-paying members archived games cannot be viewed afer a certain period of time, 30 days at the moment.  Hoever for paying premium members both their own games and the games of others are available for viewing depending on membership level.  So as you are non-paying at this point your own games after 30 days ago would not be visible to you, but they would be to me as I am a diamond member. Edit: I should add that only you or your opponent could see the content of the chat, if any, in your games

For content you put in forums this is open to all.  In your blog postings you can set privacy so that only friends can read your blog.

Having things like games archives and forum posts private takes away from the community at large. You don't have to put ANY identifying information on your profile. You can basically have it be your username, and links to your stats/games and nothing more if you wish, and you can send private messages to anyone you want (as long as they haven't blocked you). So why do we need more?

I'm not sure how a player can harass someone via knowing what games they've played. I mean, if I decide I don't like you, and want to be a jerk towards you, there's not much I can do to you once you block me. I won't be able to send you any more messages, and, it's not like the games can be kibitzed, so, I can't really make comments about your game. How can knowing someone's past games help one person abuse another?

So, it's actually good that the games are on display then, so their innocence can be proved?

Rooperi's argument is a strong one. Additionally, I would say ... "so what?". From the time I have spent in there, it seems to be mostly people who are completely obsessed with cheating, and see it in every profile, even though they really don't know how to really detect it. The real cheating detection is done by the staff, and the staff alone, and I have a lot of faith that they know what they are doing. I hardly see someone saying "This person cheated, and here's how" as reason to remove said person's games from the public eye.

I think all games should be open to viewing as they are in Otb chess.

schachgeek, really, do something about your witch hunt paranoïa.

This topic had nothing to do with cheating until you brought it up. And besides, the 'witch hunts' you see everywhere are nothing like witch hunts.

Think about it, if they were, a witch hunt would amount to the following:

"An average woman in the middle ages goes, out of sheer curiousity or because she is interested in witch detection, to a special designated place where she reads the minutes of discussions with regard to witching, and she there stumbles upon a report of people discussing her public activities to see if she was witching.. This has absolutely no consequences for her safety outside or inside this designated place, but she may still feel very offended. She was interested in witch detection, but she herself surely deserves to be immune to suspicion or investigation.  Or maybe she wasn't even interested in witch detection, but she at least wanted to know if she was discussed, because then she would know that she had to feel offended. Either way, she is the victim of bonafide witch hunt!"

ridiculous.

A witch hunt is when someone extradites your parents or refuses you a job because you didn't partake in an anti-communism rally because of illness 20 years ago. A witch hunt is when people you don't know suddenly come to your house to burn you on a stake where you will die for something you couldn't possibly have done. 

Nothing like that is happening, and your problem would be a problem to virtually noone if you didn't spam it into topics just because you can.

This topic was about the question if we have or can have private game archives. The answer is "no". Having private archives is not a right, joining or leaving the site because of its stance towards this issue is. 

A discussion about why we would want private game archives may be interesting,but I doubt if the most important reason would be these very problematic witch hunts that the vast majority of people hardly know or care about, and that are hardly witch hunts at all to most people that do know what you are talking about.

Peace.

Yes, I understand - though if you and I played a game and I chose to hide my games, our game would not be obvious to a casual observer of my profile.

This isn't a real concern for me (I'm proud of my losses .. ) but in the spirit of "privacy is a good thing" it would be nice if it were an option.