An actual proactive decision? Instead of relying on nebulous gentleman’s agreements? How novel.

so the manufacturer can connect to your personal info

They got fined for doing their job basically. Sick shit.

I’m getting an SSL handshake error whenever I try to reach it

They’re trying to preempt attempts to flood the storefront with AI generated shovelware. Adjustments can be made to policy down the road as needed, but for now this is a good way of preventing the signal to noise ratio from going out of control.

Valve has been really good about this so far.