> As long as the information isn't completely unrelated to their job function, and it's not discriminatory, it seems reasonable to use all the information at your disposal to reduce that risk.
Does it seem reasonable for Google to analyze the personal email accounts of their employees? If not, how is that any different from what's being discussed here?
You're trying to reason this through from a technology perspective, which is not how others are thinking about it. What matters more is the perception, not the software that makes it happen. We think of Gchat, email and hangouts as private communication. But playing an online game is more like being in a public space, so we have less expectation of privacy. Online games already have mechanisms for reporting toxic players, so you know going in: someone else may look at what I said.
I think this is pretty dissimilar from the hypothetical I raised, that being screening the personal email of all potential hires.
From my perspective, they're hiring someone to have access to their codebase; release their code to millions of users; and spend most of the day next to other people. Hiring is already a blunt tool for finding out if someone can do the work, much less interact well with others. As long as the information isn't completely unrelated to their job function, and it's not discriminatory, it seems reasonable to use all the information at your disposal to reduce that risk.