Kung Fu Tea Promotion [Merged]

[Linken.6345]

@Greener.6204 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@"Miss Lana.5276" said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously

do

have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

Pretty much this, extremely limited. And the second one in Vietnam is not even up and running yet according to the website. If KFT expands further in other countries maybe in the future they would be willing to host promotions with Anet outside the US. Although with how the GW2 players have relentlessly attacked and tore at them I doubt they will do that now, hell the response from players might even scare off other potential promotion partners, including those overseas.

So its perfectly fine to promote something globally online, requiring no purchase without restrictions, get people to download their app and provide SM permissions.. then try to reword their promotion under the radar to then exclude a large portion of the GW customer base and you don't think the response was justified... that smells like bait and switch promoting to me.. but again I really don't think you have actually read up on this issue, rather jumping in armed with just a shortsighted opinion on players views.I honestly hope they don't expand to the UK, if they do I'll be sure to stick to Costa Coffee ... heck I would rather pay me ole ma to make me a cup of cheap and cheerful using 2 week old tea bags - and I don't think I would be the only one to give any future ANET/KFT promotions a very wide berth.

If you're a company that's running a promotion and finds out that people outside of your country are accessing it, and you have not ensured that your promotion is compliant with the laws in every other country, the first thing you do is stop your promotion. You then assess what went wrong, evaluate what you're capable of doing, and plot a course of action that fits within your capabilities.

If KFT wanted to run their promotion so that people in Canada would be able to participate, their costs go up. If they want to add in Mexico, costs go up. Add in more and more countries, and costs go up. And what are they gaining by running the promotion in countries where they don't have customers? Nothing.

You may not like the fact that KFT doesn't want to spend time and energy running a global promotion when their customer base is almost completely in the US, but expecting them to do otherwise is silly.

For reference, here's what Anet had to go through for their Design-a-Weapon contest. While the rewards from that contest were substantially bigger, you'll see that the number of countries they were able to run the promotion in was severely limited (i.e. not at all like the global legal exposure KFT opened themselves to).

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/e33a02017-Design-a-Weapon-Contest-Rules-English.pdf

I feel it should also be noted that Anet's ability to operate internationally is not conferred to KFT just because they're in a joint promotion. Or more mundanely, my passport does not allow my friend to cross borders with me.

It dont tho since they deluxe edition codes are only for the usa people, the cost dont go up at all unless anet somehow sold them base game heroic codes witch I dubt

[Mrs Lana.2506]

@Tsar CUBE.9281 said:Anet should just hold an art contest or something in the future, giving codes out to those who promote the contest on social media and giving deluxe codes to winners. At least that would create some interesting content...

The design-a-weapon contests are never available to me, nor have other contests of the sort. Being a musician there have been music ones I would have loved to enter, but after the third time of being told I'm not eligible I don't even kittening bother. It's a waste of time to even check.

[Scud.5067]

Having lived in Taiwan for a fair while, I can confirm that bubble tea is gack.

Now, cone pizza on the other hand...

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Greener.6204 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@"Miss Lana.5276" said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously

do

have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

Pretty much this, extremely limited. And the second one in Vietnam is not even up and running yet according to the website. If KFT expands further in other countries maybe in the future they would be willing to host promotions with Anet outside the US. Although with how the GW2 players have relentlessly attacked and tore at them I doubt they will do that now, hell the response from players might even scare off other potential promotion partners, including those overseas.

So its perfectly fine to promote something globally online, requiring no purchase without restrictions, get people to download their app and provide SM permissions.. then try to reword their promotion under the radar to then exclude a large portion of the GW customer base and you don't think the response was justified... that smells like bait and switch promoting to me.. but again I really don't think you have actually read up on this issue, rather jumping in armed with just a shortsighted opinion on players views.I honestly hope they don't expand to the UK, if they do I'll be sure to stick to Costa Coffee ... heck I would rather pay me ole ma to make me a cup of cheap and cheerful using 2 week old tea bags - and I don't think I would be the only one to give any future ANET/KFT promotions a very wide berth.

If you're a company that's running a promotion and finds out that people outside of your country are accessing it, and you have not ensured that your promotion is compliant with the laws in every other country, the first thing you do is stop your promotion. You then assess what went wrong, evaluate what you're capable of doing, and plot a course of action that fits within your capabilities.

If KFT wanted to run their promotion so that people in Canada would be able to participate, their costs go up. If they want to add in Mexico, costs go up. Add in more and more countries, and costs go up. And what are they gaining by running the promotion in countries where they don't have customers? Nothing.

You may not like the fact that KFT doesn't want to spend time and energy running a global promotion when their customer base is almost completely in the US, but expecting them to do otherwise is silly.

For reference, here's what Anet had to go through for their Design-a-Weapon contest. While the rewards from that contest were substantially bigger, you'll see that the number of countries they were able to run the promotion in was severely limited (i.e. not at all like the global legal exposure KFT opened themselves to when collecting your personal data).

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/e33a02017-Design-a-Weapon-Contest-Rules-English.pdf

I feel it should also be noted that Anet's ability to operate internationally is not conferred to KFT just because they're in a joint promotion. Or more mundanely, my passport does not allow my friend to cross borders with me.

Your missing the point.. they did advertise it globally, they put the promotion out and pushed their app without any such restrictions and their app is not something new its been there for at least a year or two.The deluxe promo was never in question, there was no issue with that, for very obvious reasons that have been stated many times already in this thread.The heroic promo however, had no such restrictions, there was no requirement to purchase, it was online requiring you to download their app and assign SM privileges in return for 2 emails with codes... no purchase, no taxation laws, no shipping costs... nada.Changing terms mid promo without even acknowledging they were changing it, smells of rank amateur bait and switch and likely holds as many issues legally if pressed.

[Greener.6204]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@"Greener.6204" said:If you're a company that's running a promotion and finds out that people outside of your country are accessing it, and you have not ensured that your promotion is compliant with the laws in every other country, the first thing you do is stop your promotion. You then assess what went wrong, evaluate what you're capable of doing, and plot a course of action that fits within your capabilities.

If KFT wanted to run their promotion so that people in Canada would be able to participate, their costs go up. If they want to add in Mexico, costs go up. Add in more and more countries, and costs go up. And what are they gaining by running the promotion in countries where they don't have customers? Nothing.

You may not like the fact that KFT doesn't want to spend time and energy running a global promotion when their customer base is almost completely in the US, but expecting them to do otherwise is silly.

For reference, here's what Anet had to go through for their Design-a-Weapon contest. While the rewards from that contest were substantially bigger, you'll see that the number of countries they were able to run the promotion in was severely limited (i.e. not at all like the global legal exposure KFT opened themselves to when collecting your personal data).

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/e33a02017-Design-a-Weapon-Contest-Rules-English.pdf

I feel it should also be noted that Anet's ability to operate internationally is not conferred to KFT just because they're in a joint promotion. Or more mundanely, my passport does not allow my friend to cross borders with me.

Your missing the point.. they did advertise it globally, they put the promotion out and pushed their app without any such restrictions and their app is not something new its been there for at least a year or two.The deluxe promo was never in question, there was no issue with that, for very obvious reasons that have been stated many times already in this thread.The heroic promo however, had no such restrictions, there was no requirement to purchase, it was online

requiring you to download their app and assign SM privileges in return

for 2 emails with codes... no purchase, no taxation laws, no shipping costs... nada.Changing terms mid promo without even acknowledging they were changing it, smells of rank amateur bait and switch and likely holds as many issues legally if pressed.

They had a promotion where they gathered personal information from people along with access to their social media accounts.

• The legal exposure the promotion opened them up to is a bad thing.
• Ensuring that their promotion is able to meet the requirements of every country where people accessed it is an expensive thing.
• Exposing themselves for no gain is a pointless thing.
• Stopping the promotion the moment they realized the problem is a wise thing.
• Restarting the promotion to focus on their customer base is a smart thing.

I don't know why you're blasé about the bolded section, but it may help if you familiarize yourself with the GDPR for starters. No company, including KFT, wants to run afoul of that.

[Tsar CUBE.9281]

@Miss Lana.5276 said:

@"Tsar CUBE.9281" said:Anet should just hold an art contest or something in the future, giving codes out to those who promote the contest on social media and giving deluxe codes to winners. At least that would create some interesting content...

The design-a-weapon contests are never available to me, nor have other contests of the sort. Being a musician there have been music ones I would have loved to enter, but after the third time of being told I'm not eligible I don't even kittening bother. It's a waste of time to even check.

I know what you mean. That's why I was proposing that people who promote the contest through their social media accounts would get something like heroic codes and outfit, that way even those that are outside the anet's "mailing zone" would still get something for participating. Or they should only give out digital goods in the first place, that way physical location wouldn't (or shouldn't at least) matter to them.

[Danikat.8537]

GDPR doesn't prevent companies from running promotions like this. It just means if they do harvest data from your social media they have to tell you they're going to do it (which KFT did, even before the promotion was shut down, there were 2 or 3 screens of confirmations giving them permission to access the linked account), store the data securely and delete it if asked.

It is confusing when you first encounter it, but it's not difficult to comply with (admittedly my own employers records are still a work in progress, but the law allows for that...and deleting masses of old data is strangely satisfying) and unless you're planning to collect data and then sell it on to 3rd parties your customers are highly unlikely to agree to it shouldn't prevent any business from operating in the EU.

[Urud.4925]

@"Danikat.8537" said:(Interestingly the KFT blog post now also says that anyone using a VPN or signing up using fake social media accounts will have their social media account shut down due to suspicious activity, but it doesn't say anything about preventing you from participating in the promotion. I wonder if they've given up on actually restricting it and resorted to warnings that someone else might actually do something about it because they clearly can't get it to work as they want.)This could be true. They banned the 2 fake accounts that I created on fb, for suspicious activity indeed. The bad thing is that fb keeps spamming my emails to "recover" the accounts, providing a real picture of my face. And I don't care in the slightest. I wish fb completely deleted them. What a nuisance for a prize that I didn't even claim.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Greener.6204 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Greener.6204 said:If you're a company that's running a promotion and finds out that people outside of your country are accessing it, and you have not ensured that your promotion is compliant with the laws in every other country, the first thing you do is stop your promotion. You then assess what went wrong, evaluate what you're capable of doing, and plot a course of action that fits within your capabilities.

If KFT wanted to run their promotion so that people in Canada would be able to participate, their costs go up. If they want to add in Mexico, costs go up. Add in more and more countries, and costs go up. And what are they gaining by running the promotion in countries where they don't have customers? Nothing.

You may not like the fact that KFT doesn't want to spend time and energy running a global promotion when their customer base is almost completely in the US, but expecting them to do otherwise is silly.

For reference, here's what Anet had to go through for their Design-a-Weapon contest. While the rewards from that contest were substantially bigger, you'll see that the number of countries they were able to run the promotion in was severely limited (i.e. not at all like the global legal exposure KFT opened themselves to when collecting your personal data).

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/e33a02017-Design-a-Weapon-Contest-Rules-English.pdf

I feel it should also be noted that Anet's ability to operate internationally is not conferred to KFT just because they're in a joint promotion. Or more mundanely, my passport does not allow my friend to cross borders with me.

Your missing the point.. they did advertise it globally, they put the promotion out and pushed their app without any such restrictions and their app is not something new its been there for at least a year or two.The deluxe promo was never in question, there was no issue with that, for very obvious reasons that have been stated many times already in this thread.The heroic promo however, had no such restrictions, there was no requirement to purchase, it was online

requiring you to download their app and assign SM privileges in return

for 2 emails with codes... no purchase, no taxation laws, no shipping costs... nada.Changing terms mid promo without even acknowledging they were changing it, smells of rank amateur bait and switch and likely holds as many issues legally if pressed.

They had a promotion where they gathered personal information from people along with access to their social media accounts.

• The legal exposure the promotion opened them up to is a bad thing.
• Ensuring that their promotion is able to meet the requirements of every country where people accessed it is an expensive thing.
• Exposing themselves for no gain is a pointless thing.
• Stopping the promotion the moment they realized the problem is a wise thing.
• Restarting the promotion to focus on their customer base is a smart thing.

I don't know why you're blasé about the bolded section, but it may help if you familiarize yourself with the GDPR for starters. No company, including KFT, wants to run afoul of that.

I am aware of it.. and am not blasé about it.. maybe read back, I covered all those issues earlier. KFT were obviously not tooled up to handle such a promotion, but they still went ahead and mis-advertised their promo, then tried to cover the cracks by not acknowledging the issue, rewording the promo under the radar and claiming it was always a restricted promo for both deluxe and heroic,. Then finally killing the promotion going silent whilst trying to rework the promo and their app, yet still no official statement as to what they intend to do about all those customers of ANET that got duped into opening up their SM privileges for.. nothing but a slap in the face. The very first thing KFT should of done is acknowledge they screwed up, then detail what they intended to do about it and the individuals data they had already accumulated and possibly already pushed onto other sources. They have done nothing, except create a feeling of a2 tier status with ANET players.

Thankfully those from the EU have GDPR that has some processes in place to help, though if you know the GDPR you will also know that when it crosses beyond EU boundaries the extent of what can be done is not so sharp toothed, but at least those players have the right to demand the deletion and disposal of any and all data which KFT have to comply with. But that is something KFT should of come out and made clear would happen as soon as this issue broke, they didn't they chose to ignore it and hope it would all blow over.ANET's part in this is not all fine and dandy either, they were a partner in this cross promotion, they were supplying the goodies and it's their customer base that they also pushed towards the KFT website in order to get involved. All we have had from ANET's side is a sudden removal of the promotion, and nothing more than go speak to KFT not our problem. So I am not surprised at all that there is some real frustration aimed at ANET and especially KFT around all this.

Should there of been restrictions clearly worded and the app restricted from the start.. most likely yes for both sides to the promotion.Should players outside of those regions of been prompted by ANET to engage in this promo... well I guess we know the answer to that now, would of been nice for ANET to of actually acknowledged that failing though.Should KFT of made a clear unreserved apology for the mess they have caused and what they intend to do regarding the customers who upheld their end of the promotion, only to find KFT reneged on their side.. absolutelyShould KFT have advised they are removing/deleting all data gathered from those now deemed outcasts of this badly thought out mess of a promotion.. hell yes

[Blanche Neige.7241]

KFT comments are really amusing.

***Participants signing up with fake social media accounts will be shut down by social media sites due to suspicious activity.

I doubt anyone will care about that. They are fake accounts that will never be used after their purpose will be accomplished.

***Participants using VPNs or manually changing their IP/location are being detected by social media sites and will receive warnings of unusual behavior from these social media sites.

I doubt anyone will read those warnings, since they will be sent to disposable email accounts.

If KFT wish to prevent people outside the USA from creating fake emails and social media account to access theirs rewards with these warnings, they will be surprised that their tactics are not working.

And the link pointing to the how-to on Reddit about how to access the rewards for non-US players that was posted on this forums a few days ago was not removed. At the least, it must mean that Anet don't care.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@Miss Lana.5276 said:> They have stores in Australia and Canada. Why are those areas not included when they obviously

do

have business in those areas? Trying to argue that point is absolutely redundant.

Their presence in those countries is rather limited (one store in each IIRC).

And 2 in Viêt-Nam. (but then, I'm not sure the Vietnamese GW2 playerbase is very big)

Their presence in the US is arguably just as limited. :p

[Kal Spiro.9745]

@"Majic.4801" said:As mentioned here, I claimed by GW2 codes last Thursday and received a confirmation from the Kung Fu Tea app, but still haven't received any codes.

After allowing at least two full business days as instructed by the KFT blog, I have contacted info@popdeem.com requesting assistance, and am noting it here as a way of tracking the process.

If/when I receive my codes, or if other news develops, I'll post an update to this thread.

In the app, did you go to the section on social media rewards, find the entry for the promotion, and click on it to activate it? If it's still showing in your rewards section, that means it's not been used and it won't send you anything until it's been used.

[Daroon.1736]

@"Danikat.8537" said:GDPR doesn't prevent companies from running promotions like this. It just means if they do harvest data from your social media they have to tell you they're going to do it (which KFT did, even before the promotion was shut down, there were 2 or 3 screens of confirmations giving them permission to access the linked account), store the data securely and delete it if asked.

It is confusing when you first encounter it, but it's not difficult to comply with (admittedly my own employers records are still a work in progress, but the law allows for that...and deleting masses of old data is strangely satisfying) and unless you're planning to collect data and then sell it on to 3rd parties your customers are highly unlikely to agree to it shouldn't prevent any business from operating in the EU.

Article 29 of Directive 95/46/EC Paragraph 3 states:

3. Elements of valid consentArticle 4(11) of the GDPR stipulates that consent of the data subject means any:
   • freely given,
   • specific,
   • informed and
   • unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her.

As the App is freely available in the EU and when the GW2 promotion was initially launched there was no condition or statement indicating the promotion was for US only, consent to use data was not informed and therefore in breach of the regulations.

[Majic.4801]

@Kal Spiro.9745 said:

@"Majic.4801" said:As mentioned

here

, I claimed by GW2 codes last Thursday and received a confirmation from the Kung Fu Tea app, but still haven't received any codes.

After allowing at least two full business days as instructed by the KFT blog, I have contacted info@popdeem.com requesting assistance, and am noting it here as a way of tracking the process.

If/when I receive my codes, or if other news develops, I'll post an update to this thread.

In the app, did you go to the section on social media rewards, find the entry for the promotion, and click on it to activate it? If it's still showing in your rewards section, that means it's not been used and it won't send you anything until it's been used.

I did, which is how I got the confirmation message.

Thanks for the reminder, since it's been a busy week and I forgot to report back. I received my codes from Popdeem Tuesday morning (9/25/18), less than 24 hours after emailing them about the issue.

So I'm set, but I most definitely sympathize with my fellow players outside the U.S. and hope that somehow this will ultimately be made right for them

[Danikat.8537]

@Daroon.1736 said:

@"Danikat.8537" said:GDPR doesn't prevent companies from running promotions like this. It just means if they do harvest data from your social media they have to tell you they're going to do it (which KFT did, even before the promotion was shut down, there were 2 or 3 screens of confirmations giving them permission to access the linked account), store the data securely and delete it if asked.

It is confusing when you first encounter it, but it's not difficult to comply with (admittedly my own employers records are still a work in progress, but the law allows for that...and deleting masses of old data is strangely satisfying) and unless you're planning to collect data and then sell it on to 3rd parties your customers are highly unlikely to agree to it shouldn't prevent any business from operating in the EU.

Article 29 of Directive 95/46/EC Paragraph 3 states:

3. Elements of valid consentArticle 4(11) of the GDPR stipulates that consent of the data subject means any:
   • freely given,
   • specific,
   • informed
     and
   • unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her.

As the App is freely available in the EU and when the GW2 promotion was initially launched there was no condition or statement indicating the promotion was for US only, consent to use data was not informed and therefore in breach of the regulations.

Oh yeah I know this promotion has issues with data protection, missing/forgotten terms and conditions and poor app design. But I was responding to someone who said they had to restrict it to the USA because of GDPR.

Entirely aside from the fact that GDPR only applies to the EU so if that was the concern they could still have left the rest of the world in the promotion it also doesn't stop things like this being run in Europe, it just restricts what they can do with the data they harvest.

They've got even more GDPR issues now though because they've ignored 2 emails from me asking for my information to be deleted and now they're sending me adverts I never signed up for.

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

I was hoping this whole bubble tea thing would coincide with the new ls and actually give us the underwater dragons real name. Nearest one to me is in tampa and unfortunate for them im diabetic so all the flavors i would try is just bad for me. Ty for the codes even tho it took over a month to get.

[Alimar.8760]

I told a friend of mine about this promotion a couple weeks ago and he got a code for a heroic edition. Last night he contacted me, stated he intended to make an account but for some reason was left with a message of: "We were unable to register an account using the information provided." I let him know that he couldn't use an existing email that's been registered, or any current password used by a player. However, there was no other error stating the email or password was already in use. He has also tried different emails and passwords. Do we know if Anet shut down new account creation?

[Blanche Neige.7241]

Looks like it finally ended.

Let's hope they learned a few things from all this.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:Looks like it finally ended.

Let's hope they learned a few things from all this.

Yea.. go to Costa Coffee instead

[Medron Pryde.6850]

It ended, their app never gave me the option to claim my guild wars 2 rewards codes, and so I never had the option to get the rewards. Is there any way those of us who did what we were supposed to do and denied the ability to finish it by the outside organization that did not do what it was supposed to do can get this?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Send an email to the address on the KFT news blog concerning the promotion, I'd venture.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

It seems like really poor business to start a month-long promotion two weeks late due to technical difficulties and not to extend the ending date to reflect that. (Not sour grapes, I got mine, and just feel bad for those who didn't.)

[Fenom.9457]

This was just atrociously done, they need to offer that outfit again somewhere else

[Linken.6345]

@"Alimar.8760" said:I told a friend of mine about this promotion a couple weeks ago and he got a code for a heroic edition. Last night he contacted me, stated he intended to make an account but for some reason was left with a message of: "We were unable to register an account using the information provided." I let him know that he couldn't use an existing email that's been registered, or any current password used by a player. However, there was no other error stating the email or password was already in use. He has also tried different emails and passwords. Do we know if Anet shut down new account creation?

They disabled all the codes that wasent used when app closed down for repair on 4/9 mate.Your friend would have had to get code again after it opended up the 20/9 and now its to late.

[Danikat.8537]

Quick update: I did finally get a response from Popdeem saying my details had been deleted and they will not collect any new information (I deleted the app weeks ago so that last bit is irrelevant). Hopefully that means the two unsolicited marketing emails I received were an exception and there won't be any more. As much as I think GDPR is a good idea I'd really rather not have to go through the whole process of enforcing the request to have my data deleted.