Let users change who gets to send a friend request through privacy settings

所有讨论 > Steam 论坛 > Suggestions / Ideas > 主题详情

atc! zimmion 11 月 6 日上午 3:02

I and many others am being sent friend requests by scammers that have obvious scammer profiles or spoofed profiles that look like my friends. It would be nice to change how we receive friend requests from the privacy settings.

I have thought up of a couple of options that are similar to how profile viewing / trading privacy settings are right now.

[Everyone can send me a friend request]
Currently this is the default option for everyone. (Similar to public profile privacy setting)
[Only friends of friends can send me a friend request]
Let someone send me a friend request if we have at least x amount of mutual friends. I've noticed that some of the scammers who spoof my friends profiles will try to add at least 1 of my friends so that their name shows up at the top of the list since we have 1 mutual. That is why I put (x amount of mutual friends) rather than 1 mutual friend. (Similar to friends only profile privacy setting)
[No one]
No one can send me a friend request, not even through friend code. (Similar to private profile privacy setting)
[Friend code only]
No one can send me a friend request through my profile, but can if they have my friend code that I give out

Currently, Steam has an additional friend finder feature through the use of the Friend Code system. You give each other your friend codes to add one another. I was thinking this Friend Code would also have the ability to generate a new friend code just in case your current one is "compromised". This generate new code is similar to how we can generate a new trading link or new quick invite link.

This system to prevent someone from adding you already exists if you were to block someone on Steam, however its unfeasible for the user to manually block every single person who adds them. And it would not prevent the unwarranted friend request in the first place. Even if you have a completely private profile, scammers can still send a friend request.

Perhaps another suggestion would be to change the default setting to only friends of friends can send me a friend request. Steam used to do this a couple years ago, which changed public profiles to default to friends only. I believe this default setting was eventually rolled back to being public profile, but game details are friends only.
One issue I see with changing the default setting is how it affects the embedded (add friend) system in multiplayer games. For example, Team Fortress 2, CounterStrike 2, and Battlefield 6(?) have features to add someone on Steam from their respective in game scoreboard.

Please consider adding these privacy settings in a future update. It would lower the amount of phishing/scamming by a lot.

< >

正在显示第 1 - 5 条，共 5 条留言

Tito Shivan 11 月 6 日上午 3:39

This is one of these places where there's a conflict of interests between Steam being a store and Steam being a 'social' hub.

It's in Steam's best interests as a store to have it's customers interconected as much as possible. OTOH not everyone comes here to socialize.
I wouldn't mind some sort of lock on who can send you friends requests, but I don't see Steam being particularly interested in it.

One comment about your suggested 'levels' of privacy.
"Only Friends of friends" sounds better than it works. Steam used to have a privacy visibility setting for profiles that made them visible to friends and friends of friends only.

They ultimately removed it because it wasn't working. The problem with such a setting is you don't have control over who your friends befriend. So who's going to be able to send you invites with that setting is still going to be out of your control.

Sasori Kigaru 11 月 6 日上午 3:51

Very much like the idea and I think I've seen similar floated/asked before. Primarily in just having the ability to not allow random people send friend requests, that aside though-

I don't think steam is likely to implement it so I wouldn't get your hopes up. BUT, its not an impossibility either so, perhaps one day.

atc! zimmion 11 月 6 日上午 4:18

引用自 Sasori Kigaru：
Very much like the idea and I think I've seen similar floated/asked before. Primarily in just having the ability to not allow random people send friend requests, that aside though-

I don't think steam is likely to implement it so I wouldn't get your hopes up. BUT, its not an impossibility either so, perhaps one day.

Hopefully they can implement a solution in 2026 or anytime soon. I'm not really sure what exactly marks you as a target for these suspicious accounts to add you, but having any expensive item sure helps. One of my friends unboxed something really expensive but kept getting unwarranted friend requests, so he let me hold on to the item because I was getting a ton of them already. We saw a gradual shift of less and less scammers heading over to his profile and more towards mine.

Even with our current solution (private/friends only inventory) is more of a preventative measure. Third party websites could have a snapshot of your public inventory with an expensive item. Which pretty much means you're screwed because that information gets scraped by the bot makers.

Steam added hiding game details + friends list in 2018 and private games in late 2023. Seems like the next logical step towards privacy is controlling friend requests.

最后由 atc! zimmion 编辑于; 11 月 6 日上午 4:21