ALERT: THE LAST PETITION WAS DELETED! HOW FUCKED UP CAN THIS GET. VALVE REFUSES TO RESPOND TO THE COMMUNITY, AND NOW THE LAST PETITION AND IT'S 25,000 SIGNATURES WERE DELETED FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. I AM LINKING SCREENSHOTS OF THE OLD PETITION BELOW AND REWRITING IT.

The Old Petition: http://imgur.com/a/OlPOj

The Error Page: http://imgur.com/pqymFm2 (In case it magically reappears)

More Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/CGfKC

I am scrapping the old petition for something new and updated.

Lets begin. What the hell is Escrow? Well, valve changed the name to "trade hold" after the last petition garnered so much uproar. I will not stand idly by while community efforts against escrow "magically" dissapear, and I will not stand idly by while the escrow is forced down our throats for monetary gain.

https://github.com/SteamDatabase/SteamTracking/com...​

The above is a link to the github commit that demonstrates some interesting changes made to the site.  Escrow to trade hold.

Here Valve describes the escrow...

"What is a trade hold?

A trade hold is a period of time where the items traded are held by Steam before they are delivered."

What does this entail?

"A delay to catch unauthorized trades

If a user trading away items hasn't had their account protected by a Mobile Authenticator for the past 7 days, item delivery will be delayed by Steam for up to 3 days. This provides the user time to cancel the trade and any others that are pending.

Cancelling trades that are pending or in a trade hold will begin a trading cooldown on your account to prevent any further unauthorized attempts to trade away items."

It is clear to me that this update is not simply for our protection and lets see why. First of all, I'd like to cite the fact that there are many better ways to go about this. This blatantly screws over users who don't have smartphones, and websites especially.

What else could valve do other than the escrow? Simple, they could remove item returns for non-mobile users, or they could add incentives to mobile authentication. There are so many options. To list a few, physical authenticators, windows smartphone support, etc. Above all, the mobile authenticator was an excellent idea, but why is it being forced upon us? This blatantly disregards users with windows smartphones, users without smartphones, and websites.

This impacts the community tremendously and trade as a whole. Not only are smartphone users essentially screwed, but websites that fueled the economy and community will vanish. Surprising how a community market sale came out just as opskins and other sites will be screwed. A large number of traders will be leaving the community, and a large number will be forced to abide by these trade restrictions (and a ban upon cancelling a trade).

According to http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/mobile-tech... 64% of adults own smartphones. A fair percent of those adults do not use android or ios smartphones as well. Along with this, many people from other countries use steam. Therefore, it can be assumed that a relatively large sum of users do not have smartphones (further support can be found on the old petition).

This update will cause players to leave, sites to die, and in turn a decrease in prices. Do we want trade restrictions? Do we want a large sum of users to leave? Do we want betting/opskins/many great community sites to die? Do we want prices to crash?

This cannot possibly be simply for security. Valve's motives seem so clear. Why would Valve be shutting down a number of websites that "hinder" its profits? Why would Valve at the same time add a discount to the market? Seems pretty clear, they are trying to get users to come to the steam community market. What they don't realize is that they are taking away 3/4 of the things that fuel the economy and make them money in the first place.

We need to band together and shut this shit down. It is unacceptable that the petition was simply removed. I recieved no notification by ipetition via email or on the website. The old petition was simply removed. This simply doesn't seem like a coincidence.

PLEASE sign this petition for the sake of the Steam community. ​

Please sign the petition here as well.  http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/steam-escrow-petition-2

I do not know if Valve had anything to do with the removal of the original petition, but it seems like quite a coincidence, and I received no notice from ipetitions, so who is to decide otherwise?