We were all a bit surprised to receive a phone call today that our account had been suspended. I was a bit more surprised after I realized that it was for “sending a picture of a porn site,” which I guess is a bad thing. I mean, what if the image was of a good site? In fact, I had not even thought of a good site.
That’s the thing. The image I sent had nothing to do with the site I originally sent it to. The site I sent the image to is the official site of the popular free porn site XXXTentation because apparently they don’t have anything better to do. The site is not on our server, and if you want to see it, you can do a Google search.
This is something that we do not condone, and we have no problem with sending images in the actual context of the site, but this is one of those situations where we will take action if it is a known or repeat offense.
I think that would be a little harsh, I say this because I would think that there is a difference between sending a link and sending a DMCA takedown notice, which would be a violation of our Terms of Service.
The issue in the case we were dealing with was a game that was out of our control. The game was sold to PlayStation (we’re part of Sony’s Network, btw) when we noticed that it was being used without our approval. The company was sending out emails to the user’s email address, asking them to confirm their credit cards, and then sending them a takedown notice saying that they had been hacked and asking them to confirm they had a valid credit card.
If you didn’t have the permission of your PSN account, you could potentially lose access to your game account, but you could also lose access to your Steam account. The problem with this, even if you did have the right to use the account, was that the account itself may have been hacked.
It’s worth pointing out that the credit card was not a real credit card, but that is not the problem. The real problem was that the account owner had not yet confirmed their account. Now, if you do not have the permission of your PSN account, then you are effectively locked out of your account. If you have the permission of your Steam account, that is likely to be denied.
If your account has been hacked, your game account will now be suspended. It is unclear whether or not the account owner will be able to access the game at all; it could mean that the game is available to other PSN owners.
The real problem here is that the account owner did not provide proof that they had the permission of their PSN account. If the PSN account owner did not verify their account and had to call PSN to confirm that it had been confirmed, then they could still be suspended.
It’s worth mentioning that the suspension of an account is often a temporary measure rather than permanent. Even if the account owner did provide proof that their PSN account had been confirmed before, the hackers are unlikely to have the account owner’s PSN details. So if your PSN details have not been confirmed, you could still be suspended.