internet software legal-terms
Automatically updating a Steam user profile
<h2>Is it legal to automatically update a user profile on Valve's Steam network?</h2>
<p>I looked through the <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">subscriber</a> and <a href="http://privacy_agreement" rel="nofollow noreferrer">privacy</a> agreements, but couldn't really find anything precise enough about it (or I missed it, I don't know much of law).</p>
<p>So is it possible, for example, to make an app that allows people to, say, automatically update their steam profile's bio every day, featuring a unique daily quote, as long as they give their agreement and login credentials, without them actually pressing the &quot;Save&quot; button or anything ?</p>
<p>Or is it possible to automatically send comments to other users' profiles if agreement is given?</p>
<p>Or is it possible to automatically upload files to the <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Steam Workshop</a> ?</p>
<p>I'm very new to all of this, thanks for reading me out.</p>

<h3>Only if you ask Valve for permission first, and they agree in writing.</h3>
<p>I'm not a lawyer, but when I was reading through the Subscriber license you linked, this stuck out to me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You are entitled to use the Content and Services for your own personal use, but you are not entitled to: (i) sell, grant a security interest in or transfer reproductions of the Content and Services to other parties in any way, nor to rent, lease or license the Content and Services to others without the prior written consent of Valve, except to the extent expressly permitted elsewhere in this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use); (ii) host or provide matchmaking services for the Content and Services or <strong>emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Content and Services, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Content and Services, use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to</strong> network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks, websites or services, <strong>without the prior written consent of Valve</strong>; or (iii) exploit the Content and Services or any of its parts for any commercial purpose, except as expressly permitted elsewhere in this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The part that I've bolded is probably the part that makes this against the Terms of Service, since in order to post these sorts of automated messages to their service, you'd need to use a &quot;utility program&quot; to &quot;emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Content and Services, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Content and Services&quot;.</p>
<p>I doubt that Valve would ever agree, since such a program could very easily be used to create spam bots that works bombard users with unsolicited advertisements, but maybe Valve would be willing to cut deals with AAA video game companies to let them deploy tools to automatically manage their store pages.</p>
