Consumer Rights Wiki - User contributions [en]

Minecraft account migration

2025-08-18T17:29:30Z

Silvicchi: A recent class action lawsuit was announced, and so I wanted to add some information on it. I left the section fairly brief at this point since they just began collecting participants and have not yet had any legal proceedings.

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==Introduction==
On October 21st, 2020, [[Mojang]] announced that all Minecraft Java Edition users must migrate their Mojang accounts to Microsoft accounts to retain access to the game. On December 18th, 2023, consumers who did not do so lost access and needed to re-purchase the game to regain it. Any game progress, including purchased first and third party in-game items were lost.

==General==
[[wikipedia:Minecraft|'''''Minecraft''''']] is a sandbox video game developed by Swedish developer '''Mojang Studios''' (also known as '''Mojang AB''' or simply '''Mojang'''). The original PC version of the game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, and it is known as "Minecraft Java Edition". The first public alpha version of Java Edition came out on May 17th, 2009, then fully released on November 18th, 2011. On September 15th, 2014, Mojang was acquired by '''[[Microsoft]]'''.<ref name=":1" />

Throughout Java Edition's development, players could exclusively access their purchased copy of the game through the use of a Mojang account.<ref name=":2" /> However, on October 21st, 2020, Mojang announced that Minecraft Java Edition players must migrate their Mojang accounts to Microsoft accounts.<ref name=":03">[https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/java-edition-moving-house "Java Edition is moving house"] - minecraft.net - accessed 2025-01-29</ref> Consumers who did not migrate their accounts by December 18th, 2023 lost their access to the game and had to re-purchase Minecraft Java Edition under a Microsoft account with a new username at full retail price if they wanted to play.<ref name=":3" />

At the time of Mojang's acquisition by Microsoft, the PC version of Minecraft was known as "Minecraft Java Edition". Before the acquisition and at least through the end of 2019, customers who wanted to purchase Minecraft Java Edition would do so by creating a Mojang account and buying the game under that account's name.<ref name=":1">[https://web.archive.org/web/20191219131419/https://my.minecraft.net/en-us/login/ "Archived Minecraft Website from December 19, 2019 showing Mojang Accounts were the exclusive method of signing in"] - archive.org</ref> Minecraft Java Edition owners would then play the game by signing into the game's launcher with their Mojang Account.

Mojang announced on October 21, 2020 that Minecraft Java Edition players would need to migrate their Mojang account to a Microsoft account.<ref name=":0">[https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/java-edition-moving-house "Java Edition is moving house"] - minecraft.net - accessed 2025-01-29</ref> Those who migrated their Mojang accounts to Microsoft accounts would maintain access to their username, cosmetics, player worlds, and earn an exclusive cosmetic cape.<ref name=":0" />

Mojang's staff wrote wrote the following about the account migration: <blockquote>"Now just to be clear, migrating from Mojang to Microsoft accounts is ''mandatory''. If you don’t make the move, in several months you won’t be able to log in anymore – which means you won’t be able to play either."<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>Account migration started in waves or "batches" sometime in early 2021.<ref name=":0" /> Initially, account migration was voluntary, and users with Mojang accounts could play Minecraft Java Edition without needing to migrate their accounts. On February 2, 2022, Mojang announced that on March 10, 2022 the voluntary migration period would end and that Mojang account users would be unable to play Minecraft Java Edition without migrating their account. On May 8, 2023, Mojang announced that Mojang account owners would have until September 19, 2023 to migrate to a Microsoft account or permanently lose the capacity to migrate their account. Following this September 19, 2023 deadline, Mojang gave Mojang account owners who missed the deadline a three month grace period through December 18, 2023 to migrate their account.<ref name=":2">[https://web.archive.org/web/20231210202436/https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/19615552270221 "Post-Migration Process FAQ"] - help.minecraft.net - archived 2023-12-10</ref> Mojang account owners who exercised their option under this three-month grace period would not have access to the cosmetics associated with their Mojang account or the certainty that they would enjoy the username associated with their Mojang account under their Microsoft account. After December 18, 2023, Mojang account owners who had purchased Minecraft Java Edition from Mojang would need to purchase Minecraft under a Microsoft account in order to play the game.

On a page titled "I Missed My Chance to Migrate. What Happens to My Account?" on the official Minecraft Help Center, Mojang explains: <blockquote>"To continue playing Minecraft, you will have to buy Minecraft: Java & Bedrock Edition using a Microsoft account.<ref name=":3">[https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/19633473939981-I-Missed-My-Chance-to-Migrate-What-Happens-to-My-Account "I Missed My Chance to Migrate. What Happens to My Account?"] - help.minecraft.net - accessed 2025-02-01</ref> </blockquote>Due to the age of Minecraft, and not needing a email to sign in, many of the email address's that were linked to old accounts had been forgotten, lost, or deleted. This left players unable to migrate their old Mojang accounts, even if they were aware of the situation. Microsoft offered little support to these players as, even during the migration period, it was not made easy to contact the people behind Minecraft. Support was not replying to questions about the migration process and issues with it.

Users who could not figure out how to migrate their accounts that they bought in the pre-release era had to re-purchase Minecraft with a different username for a post-release price (Alpha costing 9.95€, Beta costing 14.95€, and the full release being 29.99€). Additionally, even if users successfully migrated their account, in the event that their Microsoft account is compromised, there is currently no avenue for Minecraft account recovery or refunding the initial purchase, and the user is required to re-purchase Minecraft to regain access to the game<ref>https://archive.org/details/microsoft-email</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-06-24 |title=Can i do something against this? Microsoft says that I have to repurchase the game!? |url=https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fcan-i-do-something-against-this-microsoft-says-that-i-have-v0-yjhz852gys8d1.png%3Fwidth%3D2028%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc3fefb859c778af5218802093b645ecc21d06702 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250812032340/http://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fcan-i-do-something-against-this-microsoft-says-that-i-have-v0-yjhz852gys8d1.png%3Fwidth%3D2028%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dc3fefb859c778af5218802093b645ecc21d06702 |archive-date=2025-08-12 |access-date=2025-08-11}}</ref>.

In https://web.archive.org/web/20210813083726/https://notch.tumblr.com/post/2175441966/minecraft-beta-december-20-2010 Notch promised in his blog that all purchasers of the Alpha version of the game would get all purchases of the game for free, even saying ''"a promise is a promise"'', as he removed it from purchases made after the release of Beta.

== Class Action Lawsuit ==
On August 16th, 2025, Kian Brose announced that they have partnered with Singularity Law AB (Sweden) to file a class-action lawsuit against Mojang<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brose |first=Kian |date=16 Aug 2025 |title=We’re Suing Minecraft in a Class Action Lawsuit |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UF_4gZclI}}</ref> for their anti-consumer practices. Of the several types of damage groups mentioned in the announcement video, the class with the most potential participants is anyone impacted by this account migration.

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Incidents]]
[[Category:Minecraft]]

Microsoft Office 365

2025-08-17T03:15:38Z

Silvicchi: /* Incidents */ Added incident regarding the planned removal of Publisher from computers in 2026

{{Incomplete|Issue 1= All issues in this article need sources (| Issue 2= }}
'''[[wikipedia:Microsoft_365|Microsoft 365]]''' is a family of software, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Excel. The branding '''Office 365''' was introduced in 2010 to refer to its subscription-based [[software as a service]], including hosted services such as Office on the web.

==How to avoid Price Increase (At least for Microsoft 365 Personal Subscriptions)==
[[File:Screenshot 2025-04-05 205541.jpg|thumb|Cancel Microsoft 365 Personal Screenshot, showing the cheaper subscription plan]]
If you currently have a "Microsoft 365 Personal" subscription, and don't want to pay the $30 price increase, there is a way to "revert" back to the $69.99 subscription. Sign in to your Microsoft account, and go to your current subscriptions. Click on your "Microsoft 365 Personal" subscription, then click on cancel subscription. It will then give you the option to switch to the "Microsoft 365 Personal Classic" subscription (see image to right for reference), which is Microsoft's new name for what was the "Microsoft 365 Personal" subscription. There is a [https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoft/comments/1i7jrek/microsoft_365_personal_goes_up_in_price_by_30/ reddit thread] on how to do this, which is linked if you want to read through it as well.

==Consumer Impact Summary==
{{Placeholder box|Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):
* User Freedom
* User Privacy
* Business Model
* Market Control}}

==Incidents==

===Microsoft Copilot on by default (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)===
In the current version of Office 365, Microsoft Copilot is turned on by default. It can be turned off in some of the Office applications' options (Word, Excel, but not PowerPoint, though Microsoft say they'll add the "off" button to PowerPoint in February 2025).

===Forced upsell===
In January 2025, YouTuber Atomic Shrimp reported<ref name="video-explanation">{{cite web|author=Atomic Shrimp|title=Microsoft’s Sneaky Forced-Upsell to 365 Users; If You Don’t Need/Want Copilot, Don’t Pay for It|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVPThx7yss|website=Youtube|date=25 Jan 2025|access-date=25 Feb 2025|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250225115451/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVPThx7yss%2A|archive-date=25 Feb 2025}}</ref> that Microsoft had enacted a "forced upsell" of 365's new AI Copilot feature. Users with basic accounts (now called "Classic"), such as Shrimp himself, had been informed their subscription fee was going up, but that they would enjoy new features as a result, including Copilot. In his efforts to disable Copilot, Shrimp subsequently discovered that Microsoft now offered "Classic" plans, identical to the old basic plans both in features and in subscription fee. The option to downgrade to Classic, however, was only visible to enterprise users, not to personal users. In essence Microsoft upgraded users' plans without their consent and disabled the option to downgrade, forcing the user to contact Microsoft support in order to opt out of the newly introduced Copilot AI features. The forceful upgrade was at the user's expense, and the downgrading process through support, according to Shrimp, was very time consuming. It is possible to downgrade a personal account through the website without contacting support. If you go to the first page of the cancellation process, there should be an option to downgrade to the "Classic" plan.

File request, a common feature in other cloud service providers' ''free'' plans, that allows you to invite users to anonymously upload files to a designated cloud folder (e.g. group vacation photos) is only available in personal plans if every uploader is logged-in to a Microsoft account. If you want anonymous uploads, you have to upgrade to a One Drive for Business-Account. Since this is a common feature in other providers' free private plans (e.g. Dropbox), consumers subconsciously expect it to be a feature in paid personal OneDrive plans of the highest tier, but it's not offered.

===Obfuscation of local saving in favor of OneDrive (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)===
Because of OneDrive, since the introduction of Office 365, saving files locally has been getting more and more difficult to do. Previously, the user would get the expected saving dialog with a pop-up to browse their computer and choose a file-storage location. This is now multiple clicks away, making it harder to avoid saving the file on OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud service.

Files on one's computer are also automatically uploaded to OneDrive by default, causing numerous issues (such as synchronization errors and duplicate files) Turning off this automatic backup is also of considerable difficulty, as one has to navigate a number of settings to get to this option.

To mitigate this somewhat, user can go into Options > Save > Set the check mark on "save locally as default". It still takes multiple clicks to save a file, but the cloud options are at least a bit less intrusive.

===Forced Diagnostic Data Transmission===
Versions other than the Enterprise or Education volume licensing editions do not allow turning telemetry off fully. Moreover, the setting is configured to the least private setting by default.

Office transmits data about 23 000 to 25 000 different types of events<ref>https://www.privacycompany.eu/blog/impact-assessment-shows-privacy-risks-microsoft-office-proplus-enterprise</ref> (other reports in context of the German BSI audit speak of 30 000 types of events) to Microsoft. Microsoft can adjust the level of detail transmitted remotely. This can go up to every single keystroke being broadcast live to Microsoft servers in the background.

Given that it is not uncommon in some countries even for hospital to run consumer versions of the software, the privacy implications are tremendous. It cannot reasonably be assumed that any data entered into nor any interaction with a Microsoft Office application will stay private.

=== Publisher Removal from Microsoft 365 Computers (Oct. 2026) ===
In October 2026, Microsoft will be removing Publisher from computers<ref>{{Cite web |last=Poremsky |first=Diane |date=2025-03-31 |title=Can people keep using Microsoft Publisher unsupported after the end of support date in October 2026 |url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5389573/can-people-keep-using-microsoft-publisher-unsuppor}}</ref> with Microsoft 365 as part of their "end of support" of the application.

==See also==
*[[Software as a service]]
*[[Dark pattern]]

==References==

[[Category:Microsoft Office]]
[[Category:Subscription-based services]]
<references />