First, it doesn’t matter if someone “intends” something to be private. Let’s say I write a letter and post that letter up on a billboard. Then I say “That letter is private, don’t read it!” Are you a bad person if you read it? NO! There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for something posted on a billboard.
The same goes for the web. Something that has a publicly accessible URL with no authentication mechanism is public for the entire world to see. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy. People keep saying “semi-private” or “semi-public” but that is just wrong. Those deck lists were published publicly on the Internet for all to see, like it or not. It doesn’t matter whether the people posting it knew that or not. They fucked up.
Just like it’s OK to photograph a complete strange walking down the street, even without their permission. They have no reasonable expectation of privacy when out in public.
Second, it’s not OK to look at someone’s diary because that is real life and real harm. It is perfectly fine to look at this information because it’s a fucking card game.
If I’m playing Diplomacy it’s perfectly OK for me to lie to Rym and betray him. If I’m playing Counter-Strike I can shoot him in the head. If I’m playing Poker it’s OK for me to try to look at his hand and use that information if he is careless enough to let me see it.
These are all horrible and wrong things to do IRL. Lying to and betraying your friends? Murdering people with guns? Looking at people’s private information, say, their bank account. NO NO NO.
This is the reason we play competitive games. When playing competitive games we can consensually engage in behaviors that would otherwise be downright evil. We create a space where it is safe, and expected, to do horrible things in a battle to determine who is the smartest, strongest, fastest, and/or bestest. That’s the whole point. People who do not consent, do not have to engage! It’s a game, they can leave at any time. Nobody is actually harmed because everything took place in a fictional world that hurts nobody.
Just like I can murder your MMORPG character and steal all their gear, and that’s perfectly OK. But murdering a real person and taking their wallet is the wrongest of wrongs.
And because I know where this is going next, the same applies to victim blaming. Victim blaming in the real world is wrong. Blaming someone for not properly securing their house when they got burgled is wrong.
But victim blaming in a game is perfectly OK. If Rym loses a game of T&E because he made a stupid move, he can be blamed for that. You are responsible for your own failures in a game. If you lose at football because you let the other team steal your signals, that’s your own damn fault!