It’s because it isn’t spyware. There is no kernel level anticheat or admin requirements as people keep suggesting . And the only things it sends back to gearbox is related to game functions:

• your steam friends list so it can check if they have a gearbox account
• in game chat
• which level in the game you’re currently on

I literally went to the point of packet inspection and found nothing to be concerned about.

EDIT: clarified reply was about it being called spyware.

People seem to not understand how TOS works. The game exe does not request admin permissions at all. There is no kernel level anticheat. It does not install Battleye or EAC or anything of the sort.

The TOS is not specific to this game. It just means there is at least one game by Take Two Interactive that requires this (though when I skimmed through I couldn’t find mention of it).

The game has not been updated since 2022 and I highly doubt it will get any more.

I checked the Steam depots. It seems the game files haven’t been updated since 2022. All that seems to have changed is some license agreement in February. Seems to be a thing across take two games, and not specific to borderlands 2.

Basically nothing has changed in real terms for this game. Maybe borderlands 4 might have draconian DRM, who knows.