Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Privacy

[...]The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their real-life first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged. 
[...]



I strongly suggest that anyone who isn't down with the syndrome voice their objection to this change. I'm totally cool with being Facebook friends with guildmates and teammates I've known for a while, but I, me, I, me, would like the power to control who has access to my personal information. There are hard to predict repercussions from giving away information like this -- (If I can find your name and addy on spokeo, and I see you went offline or stopped posting, can I infer your current location to rob/rape you? Can I blackmail you if I know your employer and see you're playing games instead of working? Can I engage you in various confidence scams through WoW?)

This move does almost nothing to stop "malicious" posting whatever that means. It's not too terribly hard to have a John Doe account. (Which seems like a decent option going forward)

Honestly, I'm one of the least affected players by this -- outside of alpha/beta, I never post on the Blizzard forums and I arena with the same dozen or so players always, so I'm not terribly exposed to the change. I will certainly never post on the official forums or ever use RealID in game. (Despite the fact that I'm IRL friends with many of the people I arena with...because why do I need to, they're on skype/axon/vent with me) I fail to see any upside in this nonsense -- I have no idea what Blizzard's intentions are, and I'm really not a privacy nut, but is it so much to ask to just PLAY A GAME and not engage in some pointless and potentially dangerous social network clusterfuck?

24 comments:

illexial said...

guaranteed to be some serious high school bullying scenarios out of this one

also it'll be really embarrassing when people find out my real name is Waldo Walkarpiting

Anonymous said...

jesus this cant go through

rahvin said...

hahaha lex you better be careful

are you guys playing right now?

illexial said...

yea but I'm not sure how much fun it is lol we'll see how long I last

rahvin said...

hit me with the vent info somehow, i lost it

Anonymous said...

it seems like the only downside is that it causes a lot of bitching... otherwise who the fuck cares if a first/last name are displayed on your forum posts...

if you're worried about people coming and trying to kill you, heres something to try dont say or do shit that makes people want to kill you

a novel idea for the internet i know

comment left anonymously for irony value

Anonymous said...

My John Doe account is actually a John Stamos account. I shall be posting from that one.

Anonymous said...

this better be a great july fools prank by blizz

Raddy said...

I can't wait for offensive "real names"

BILL KLACKS
NICK DIGGER
HUCK FOMOS

Raddy said...

Blizzard didn't think VERONICA MARS CREAMPIE was as funny as me

theo said...

this can't be constitutional.

rrrr said...

Constitutionality doesn't really come into this as long as it's not applied retroactively. If you don't like it, you don't have to post. However if they change all old posts to show your RL information, and you get into trouble because of that, you could definitely sue.

I don't see why this needs to go into legality though. It's just really obviously a shit idea. My only question is who was dumb enough to come up with it.

Anonymous said...

I'm with the "I just don't see the upside" crowd. It's not super-hard to avoid the privacy concerns (just don't post), but what's the point? Lay off the forum moderation staff?

Phael said...

yes this has bad fucking news all over it.

Anonymous said...

voting doesn't work for me either

Illexial said...

^

You're probably an ethnic minority...that's why

Raddy said...

We don't like minorities here

shift said...

Don't you have more titles on priest than mage at this point?

Anonymous said...

real id's on the forums have been cancelled - raddy has spoken!

rahvin said...

raddy and about a billion other blizzard customers.

Raddy said...

@shift - 6 on both fagalag but my priesting >> my mageing probably

@anon - so i don't get to rape ebitches no more?

Anonymous said...

lol someone just voted like 40 times on your poll for #5

Raddy said...

HATERS

Kristin Bartlett said...

I can't wait for offensive "real names" BILL KLACKS NICK DIGGER HUCK FOMOS