Please condense the following to 3500 characters: "Hello,

My name is <PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>. I'm contacting you today to report a breach of contract situation impacting over 1 million customers.

Just recently in September of 2023, Mojang AB claims to have conducted a mass deletion of customer's Minecraft accounts. Mojang made no attempt to notify customers such as myself via the email address on file of their intent of action, nor did they present a clear legal basis on which to do so.

This report highlights several instances of breach by Mojang, affecting a group of customers who purchased Minecraft dating from its inception in 2009  to before May 24th, 2011. The impacted customer base comprises over one million accounts, based on available sales information indicating that as of January 2011 the title surpassed 1 million purchases. There are over 238 million sales transactions in total, however this report focuses only on the assigned customer class from the aforementioned dates.

I purchased a premium account from Mojang in October of 2010. The Wayback Machine hosts the relevant EULA/Terms of Sale which can be referenced here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20101101175818/http://www.minecraft.net/copyright.jsp

The customers in question entered into a contract with a EULA/TOS that does not contain a revision clause. This prohibits Mojang from performing unilateral modification of the EULA/TOS for this class of customer. While it may be inconvenient for Microsoft, these sales contracts from the alpha and early beta development period are valid legal instruments and existed prior to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang AB.

Mojang and Microsoft are operating as if these contracts do not exist. Attempts to raise concerns with Mojang's customer support and Microsoft’s ethics/legal department have proven unsuccessful. The latter department, despite claiming ethical and legal compliance as its mission, went out of their way to stonewall me and refused to acknowledge the contract's validity. They behaved in a circularly obstructive and non-responsive manner, and made false claims regarding my contractual rights. I gave them several opportunities to demonstrate and cite how their claims applied to the contract we entered into and they avoided taking accountability. In the end they strategically disengaged and shut down further communication. I believe they are operating unlawfully and in bad faith.

The following information concerns related issues of breach:

1. Prior to account deletion, Mojang terminated access to the authentication servers required for customers to log into the game in an apparent attempt to induce migration to using Microsoft accounts. The contract by its very nature designates Mojang as the provider of authentication and account support and makes no allowances for third party accounts. Removing this support is a breach of the agreement. Mojang is withholding purchased goods and services from customers who are not required to take any further actions in order to materialize the benefits of their purchase.

I believe it was Microsoft's intention to remove authentication servers for Mojang accounts and onboard customers into a Microsoft account ecosystem for all the various material gains that provides, including advertising and data mining, and that they would further strip away access and functionality from the game, which has now come to pass, leaving customers like myself without access to what we paid for under the terms agreed upon.

2. Microsoft accounts are not a sales transaction, and Microsoft accounts represent an erosion of the rights which existed at the point of sale with Mojang. A loss of individual rights and privacy over personal and published data occurs through conversion to a Microsoft account. Correcting this issue at the very least requires Mojang taking responsibility and reverse these actions.

3. Under Mojang, it was considered acceptable for a customer to purchase more than one Minecraft account. Under a Microsoft account, it is a violation to own more than one account, which I presume stems from an "anti cheating" policy, and based on this Microsoft policy this is grounds for termination of all of your accounts. This is another example where Microsoft and Mojang failed to remedy an internal policy conflict and penalized and restricted individuals for what were legal purchases.

4. Mojang is causing dissatisfaction among users by implementing broad and intentionally vague guidelines regarding server operation and content control. This includes restricting the use of add-ons and the creation and sale of mods/add-ons as well as trying to control use of video or images. These actions contradict the terms and rights originally granted, leading to legal threats and potential lawsuits by Mojang and Microsoft, which have negative financial implications for users. Additionally, Mojang’s shift in attitude includes retroactively censoring content on platforms like YouTube, and their failure to acknowledge the agreements made with their customers is the root cause of these conflicts.

5. The limited reasons for banning an account as specified in the contract have been exceeded by Mojang. This includes: a. Deleting the accounts of customers who did not migrate. b. The implementation of a user reporting feature that can lead to false reporting and automated bans triggered by a third party. c. The introduction of a “community standards” policy which has resulted in enforcement of arbitrary moral and political beliefs held by Mojang's staff in violation of existing customer rights. d. Microsoft accounts themselves produce new causes for termination not permitted by the contract.

There is a growing trend of centralization with Microsoft and Mojang. Many suspect that Microsoft plans to eliminate the original Minecraft Java software. This suspicion arises from the development of the Bedrock version, which exclusively includes a microtransaction system, suggesting a transition away from Java. If this phase out occurs, it opens up a large can of worms based on additional points in the contract being violated.

6. Customers who purchased during the 'alpha' phase of development were grandfathered into all future versions of the game, including add-on content created by Mojang. Microsoft presently hosts add-on content in their store with a collective value of over $200 USD for the Bedrock version. However, Mojang has not made any effort to grant qualifying customers access to this content. As a result, promised content remains inaccessible behind a paywall.

Over the years Mojang has tried to claim arbitrary limitations to this policy, effectively preventing these early adopters from fully taking advantage of the grant, however in contract law the customer's reasonable interpretation of ambiguity is the favored position. This particular issue may require a legal action in order to resolve given Mojang's refusal to even acknowledge their obligation.

7. Mojang argues ‘use equals consent’. The default launcher program states upon launch that customers are prohibited from using the software if they do not consent to additional terms. Access to the software was already guaranteed in the EULA/TOS contract, which includes the launcher as they made customers dependent upon using this software to initiate the client configuration. This assertion by Mojang is clearly fraudulent.

From my experience, Microsoft’s legal department relies on this position as a defense for most of their actions despite having no means to causally demonstrate that it is even applicable to this class of customer for all the reasons stated before.

8. Mojang has added a default automatic update functionality into the Minecraft launcher software, where the user is deprived of a choice in the matter of updating, and similarly presented with a newer updated EULA/TOS which Mojang claims you agree to through continued use. Once again, this is a breach. Customers may appreciate the option to update the launcher at startup, however it must be based on a customer's informed consent. Withholding access to content that was already granted to the customer is a material breach as stated before.

This practice is even worse than the harassment of private servers by Mojang for offering paid privileges or access. Mojang repeatedly imposes new compliance demands before allowing access to purchases, falsely assuming their EULA applies to everyone. This is a clear violation of the TOS.

This is not an exhaustive list, but touches on the most concerning issues. If you require further information or transcripts from Mojang/Microsoft interactions, please feel free to contact me.

I estimate the loss of value for Alpha and qualifying Beta customers with terminated accounts arrives at a conservative figure around $166,455,000 USD. This number is comprised of both purchases of the game as well as loss of access to the add-ons that premium accounts were promised. That doesn't factor for losses incurred from the denial of service in relation to servers, commercial or otherwise, or customers who relied on the production of content such as video for their earnings. Many customers have been without access for over a year, and with Mojang's claim that they will delete customer account data, it creates an alarming situation of mass fraud and notable financial harm.

Because Microsoft is a US company, the FTC is the best organization to act on this. That said, European Union customers have also claimed that mass account deletion is a violation of jurisdictional law no matter when they purchased the software. Additional research is required to determine other violations, but I believe there is overwhelming evidence to proceed even with the impacted customers I have described above.

The perception exists that it is next to impossible for individuals to litigate against Microsoft to any degree of success. They really have approached antitrust status with all of their acquisitions, IMO. I have tried to find solutions with Mojang and Microsoft to no avail. The defeated sentiments and feelings of unfair treatment are reflected in the reviews left by consumers on sites such as Trustpilot.

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/mojang.com

It is my hope that the FTC is able to remedy this situation with some benefit to the customer base while bringing these companies into compliance. It is crucial to act quickly and file an injunction to protect accounts from complete deletion, and to order a restoration for authentication and account access. If Mojang deletes the account data, they will in essence be deleting evidence of their contractual engagements and it will be harder to sort this out on the other side of such an action.

Mojang and Microsoft have caused significant contractual and financial harm: Denying customers access to their purchased accounts, effecting the shutdown of many paid hosted servers, jeopardizing revenue sources of individuals running businesses, manipulating customers into giving up their contractual rights by obtaining Microsoft accounts, neglecting to inform customers of changes or actions in general, and disregarding the agreement made with early adopters.

Thank you for taking the time to evaluate my report. If any developments occur I appreciate notice. I am available for contact. 

Sincerely,
<PRESIDIO_ANONYMIZED_PERSON>

"