Favorite point changes - OPTOUT. Is this an error?

Question

I am unsure whether this is a bug report or not.

I received an email about favorite point changes on two of our caches.  It indicated that points were added and subtracted.  All four user names contained "OPTOUT" with different numbers.  Screen shot linked below. Is this a bug, or did four users who wish to remain hidden coincide tally add and remove FPs on the same day?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/1cc1f4c7-6328-4259-ab02-0bb38935e541.jpg

Comments

Yes getting the same behaviour also.  I was going to ask the same questions if it is a bug or some new feature to stay anonymous.

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Ah, I also received the notification.  I actually just glanced at it as I usually do and interpreted as a unique username.  I never considered it as a feature of sorts.

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Got the same today : https://i.imgur.com/iXZSUlU.png

I think it is a bug as we are all having this behavior for the first time today and "Added" and "Removed" or perfectly balanced.

Answer 1

I received a number of these, too, and I know exactly who the user is.  (The "Optout" name shows up in my list of the top CO's whose hides I've found so it was easy to identify her.)  I know she is still active...very much so, in fact.  I'll ask her if she's done anything to her profile lately that would have caused this.

Update to my earlier message: My friend said she had "selected to opt out of third party vendors" on geocaching.com.  To me this makes sense (and I'm really nobody so take this with a grain of salt!), but in essence Project-GC has no idea who my friend is at this point.  Her favorite point is "removed" on Project-GC (and is assigned the "OPTOUT" user name), but the total on geocaching.com remains the same.  In order to reconcile the difference, Project-GC is adding one back in on their end.  Again...this makes sense to me, but since I don't work for P-GC I'm not sure if this is the actual case or not.

Comments

I noticed the OPTOUT name is no longer on your stats.  Did they optout of the optout?

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Basically, that's correct, TerraViators.  I noticed I was receiving Favorite Point notifications with my friend's name on them and also noticed that the "OPTOUT" was missing from my Project-GC stats.  My friend had opted "back in" to exchange information between Geocaching.com and 3rd party vendors (whether temporarily or permanently remains to be seen), so now her name is showing up.  As a side note, the favorite point email I received also contained the following: "...we have detected changes in favorite points for 1 of your geocaches. 0 FP was removed and 1 FP was added (+1 FP). Plus another -1 FP were removed by anonymous Geocachers."  This ties back to what I was originally thinking when I said that Project-GC must "add in" a favorite point  on their side in order to reconcile back to the number of favorite points recorded on geocaching.com.

Answer 2

It is for people having opted out from geocaching (having asked that all their data will be deleted according to GDPR - general data protection rules, the right to be forgotten). I think in the past these people were simply removed, but now it seems geocaching.com or project-GC compensate the fact that the favorite point have been deleted by a compensating awarded point. You will probably also see (like i did) these removed users in the statistics of found of top finders of your cache by exemple.

Comments

Thanks for the info, I could not assign it

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No thats not true. I got that only from active users.

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Today I have received such an info for a cache again, 
but I can not imagine that so many users have been deleted.
It seems like a mistake. 

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I don't think the above answer is correct. Over the last few days, I've received about 8 of these favorite point changes. I checked every one of those caches and have found that a cacher that started in 2003 has changed his caching name. His new name is one of the favorites on every one of those caches. So, I believe the favorite point is taken away under the old caching name, and reapplied under the new caching name. Could this be true?

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I received a number of these, too, and I know exactly who the user is.  (The "Optout" name shows up in my list of the top CO's whose hides I've found so it was easy to identify her.)  I know she is still active...very much so, in fact.  I'll ask her if she's done anything to her profile lately that would have caused this.

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Update to my earlier message: My friend said she had "selected to opt out of third party vendors" on geocaching.com.  To me this makes sense (and I'm really nobody so take this with a grain of salt!), but in essence Project-GC has no idea who my friend is at this point.  Her favorite point is "removed" on Project-GC (and is assigned the "OPTOUT" user name), but the total on geocaching.com remains the same.  In order to reconcile the difference, Project-GC is adding one back in on their end.  Again...this makes sense to me, but since I don't work for P-GC I'm not sure if this is the actual case or not.

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@spooko13 - that makes sense.  If you post this as an answer to the question rather than a comment, I think this is the best answer.

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Oh!  Thanks, hzoi.  Didn't know I was allowed to do that.  I thought answering the questions was only for employees of Project-GC themselves.  :)  I'll give it a shot.

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I just received this notification:

https://abload.de/img/screenb9kb5.jpg

I think, the part about the "anonymus geocachers" is new and will replace this "Optout" issue?

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This answer is not correct.  If people choose to have their entire accounts deleted it will show as [DELETED_USER] and not OPTOUT.  

The OPTOUT applies only if "someone who has chosen to hide their stats or had "selected to opt out of third party vendors" on geocaching.com" is true.