I posted this on my guild forum and thought it should be posted here also:
Yep, whoever thought of the RealID / Real name showing in the forums is a complete idiot and has no respect for privacy.
I would like to mention, that if this does happen I can imagine quite a few class action lawsuits coming to them. Especially, if the Real name showing is retroactive. Which in turn, shows people names that never agreed to the new TOS. Thus a class action lawsuit would win in a heartbeat.
Why? Other companies have tried this same type of stuff, but on paper instead and not the internet. However, they were dealt a blow and the lawsuits against them won.
Also, companies like AT&T have lost lawsuits because they thought they were immune with their TOS / EULA agreement. However, courts ruled that just clicking Accept for the TOS / EULA on a website / software is non legal binding. Thus, the defendant has all the right to sue and the TOS / EULA does not stand a chance in court. Because, even blizzard only uses an ACCEPT button and does not require actual Signing / Digital Signature.
I know Microsoft has their ass covered when it comes to Subscription to the Actionpack for small business. Every time you wish to resubscribe they have you digitally sign the TOS agreement. Thus, they are covered in court and the TOS is legally binding.
Even, the government for FASFA for college makes you sign with a legal binding digital signature that is connected to your social / name. Nonetheless, Blizzard does not and will get their asses handed to them in court.
Okay, where to start.
First off, I think you should be careful who you call an idiot. These are professionals, guys who do this for a living. Blizzard is a huge company. Im sure they only afford the best.
Secondly, they have already said it won't be retroactive, that would be rediculous and obviously problematic.
Thirdly, your first and last name, especially for an optional video game forum is not something the courts will be interested in. The forum is completely optional; 99% of wow players probably never post even once their. If you want to post something, you may think twice before being an absolute tool.
Its totally optional. WoW forums will be a place that people who are willing to use their first and last name as an identifier can post. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then don't. Its easy not to.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
So many people have such a warped, scared view of the world.
People steal ID's by swiping Credit Cards, sending out virus. Nobody is going to go through the effort to target you from a videogame forum where they ONLY get your first and last name. If somebody wanted to steal somebodies information they could open up ANY page of the phone book and get a better start.
Even if they can somehow manage to find information about you by just googling your name, what good does that do them? Are they going to stalk you, no. Are they going to do anything with that information? no.
Theives have FAR better ways to get the information they need about targets far more valuable than any of you would ever be. You use your real name every day, you show your credit card to minimum wage employee's at walmart every week, you hand your credit card to watiresses. You show your drivers license to bouncers.
People wear name tags to conventions; do they all lose thier identities, get stalked raped and die? No they dont.
People are blowing this into a rediculous situation. I personally am VERY glad that Blizzard is doing this, if not just so we can have precident on the internet of people using their real names.
You can actually find more about my personally by searching my character in WoW's name than my real name, but do I care if people can find out one picture of me from facebook and my music choices on last.fm? No I don't, because that means nothing. If anybody asked me for a picture I'd show them, if anybody asked me what music I listen to I'd say Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favourite band. People are far to paranoid, hopefully this becomes a reality check.
What I see on these RealID threads is far too many people who have fortunately not been on the receiving end of harassment in real life passing judgment on other people who may have grounds for their fears.
I think the internet is just sucking sympathy out of humanity instead of injecting it like we initially thought it would.
I know it's going to be shocking, but everybody playing MMOs is not like you. Some people have problems that would constitute a minority, or even unique problems. That does not mean they should be ignored. And speaking for them is asinine.
So you're an ordinary person with no worries and no need for a high level of privacy, good for you! Not everybody has to be ordinary, or part of the majority.
Salman Rushdie should be able to play a game and post on their boards in peace as well.
Come to think of it, I'm having a fun time right now imagining Salman Rushdie trolling WOW forums.
Well, AT&T is bigger than Blizzard, and thought they had it in the bag also with all their smug lawyers, but they got their asses handed to them multiple times when it came to the TOS / EULA.
AT&T even appealed, but the courts still ruled that the TOS / EULA is non legally binding without a digital signature / signature. It actually set a precedent a year or so ago. However, for some reason people seem to forget about these cases. Even current lawyers seem to forget about these cases.
So many people have such a warped, scared view of the world.
People steal ID's by swiping Credit Cards, sending out virus. Nobody is going to go through the effort to target you from a videogame forum where they ONLY get your first and last name. If somebody wanted to steal somebodies information they could open up ANY page of the phone book and get a better start.
Even if they can somehow manage to find information about you by just googling your name, what good does that do them? Are they going to stalk you, no. Are they going to do anything with that information? no.
Theives have FAR better ways to get the information they need about targets far more valuable than any of you would ever be. You use your real name every day, you show your credit card to minimum wage employee's at walmart every week, you hand your credit card to watiresses. You show your drivers license to bouncers.
People wear name tags to conventions; do they all lose thier identities, get stalked raped and die? No they dont.
People are blowing this into a rediculous situation. I personally am VERY glad that Blizzard is doing this, if not just so we can have precident on the internet of people using their real names.
You can actually find more about my personally by searching my character in WoW's name than my real name, but do I care if people can find out one picture of me from facebook and my music choices on last.fm? No I don't, because that means nothing. If anybody asked me for a picture I'd show them, if anybody asked me what music I listen to I'd say Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favourite band. People are far to paranoid, hopefully this becomes a reality check.
What I see on these RealID threads is far too many people who have fortunately not been on the receiving end of harassment in real life passing judgment on other people who may have grounds for their fears.
I think the internet is just sucking sympathy out of humanity instead of injecting it like we initially thought we would.
I know it's going to be shocking, but everybody playing MMOs is not like you. Some people have problems that would constitute a minority, or even unique problems. That does not mean they should be ignored. And speaking for them is asinine.
So you're an ordinary person with no worries and no need for a high level of privacy, good for you! Not everybody has to be ordinary, or part of the majority.
Salman Rushdie should be able to play a game and post on their boards in peace as well.
Come to think of it, I'm having a fun time right now imagining Salman Rushdie trolling WOW forums.
The issue here is that if you have some sort of bizzare security situation... Don't post on the forums.
If you are going to make an ass of yourself and make the forums a worse place for other people, then you should have to deal with the consiquences.
What makes Salman Rushdie so special? Sure hes the only one with his name or one of 5 people. But who is going to target him. Who is going to read through the WoW forums and find a guy with a name that "seems rare" search the name, then from that information target him.
This same guy would have a MUCH easier time just going into the phonebook, finding a name, grabbing the full name address and phone number and getting off to a much better start.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
I think there should be one username instead of being able to use several character names from in game. I don't think it is a good idea to display real names, don't know what Blizzard were thinking when they came up with this. Though it does smell of them going down the shitter like they have been since joining activision.
Well, AT&T is bigger than Blizzard, and thought they had it in the bag also with all their smug lawyers, but they got their asses handed to them multiple times when it came to the TOS / EULA.
AT&T even appealed, but the courts still ruled that the TOS / EULA is non legally binding without a digital signature / signature. It actually set a precedent a year or so ago. However, for some reason people seem to forget about these cases. Even current lawyers seem to forget about these cases.
This isn't using a TOS/EULA to sign away peoples rights, this is a PUBLIC forum requiring people to WILLINGLY provide their name to post.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Ah but you forget, in order to post in the forum you must agree to a TOS / EULA already. However, Blizzard does not use a digital signature / signature when accepting the TOS / EULA. Thus, it is not legally binding according to the courts.
Also, the forums are not PUBLIC! They are private and are held on a private server run by a private corporation. Thus, they are literally taking away your privacy rights by displaying your name publicly to all users signed in or not signed in. It wouldn't be so bad if they only displayed it if you were signed in. However, they are going to display it even if the user is not signed in. Therefore, any hacker / malicious person could come to the site and find any name they wanted that posted on the forum to target that person for identiy theft or any other possible malicious things.
Also, companies like AT&T have lost lawsuits because they thought they were immune with their TOS / EULA agreement. However, courts ruled that just clicking Accept for the TOS / EULA on a website / software is non legal binding. Thus, the defendant has all the right to sue and the TOS / EULA does not stand a chance in court. Because, even blizzard only uses an ACCEPT button and does not require actual Signing / Digital Signature.
I know Microsoft has their ass covered when it comes to Subscription to the Actionpack for small business. Every time you wish to resubscribe they have you digitally sign the TOS agreement. Thus, they are covered in court and the TOS is legally binding.
Even, the government for FASFA for college makes you sign with a legal binding digital signature that is connected to your social / name. Nonetheless, Blizzard does not and will get their asses handed to them in court.
Where did you get that information? Courts in the US have generally held TOS/ EULAs as legally binding as long as they did not contain clauses that violated current law. So if there are laws that prohibit them from posting people's names even with their consent then the TOS is invalid. Otherwise there is no legal issue there.
Digital Signatures are great if there is a dispute whether you signed an electronic document or not but in this case the mere fact that you are playing the game, indicates that you clicked ACCEPT.
The whole point is not wheather people's security is at risk, it is that people have heard so much about identity theft and they are concerned.
Blizzard may have good lawyers but their PR people are idiots to let this happen. As usual this is another case where "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" It will not stop trolling, it will do more damage to people who try to follow the rules. If Blizzard really cared about the crap on their forums they should have had better moderation. I guess they did not want to spend the time and effort to clean up their forums.
The Blizzard forums have gone up in flames !!! It will be interesting to see what happens.
I forget where, but it was either in Oklahoma, Kansas, or Texas. The courts ruled, that since AT&T did not have a signature / digital signature confirming the person signed the TOS / EULA. Then the TOS / EULA was null and void and did not apply to the person, even though the person was an AT&T customer. Like I said, it was a precedent set 1 - 2 years ago. However, somehow people seem to forget that it ever happened.
So many people have such a warped, scared view of the world.
People steal ID's by swiping Credit Cards, sending out virus. Nobody is going to go through the effort to target you from a videogame forum where they ONLY get your first and last name. If somebody wanted to steal somebodies information they could open up ANY page of the phone book and get a better start.
Even if they can somehow manage to find information about you by just googling your name, what good does that do them? Are they going to stalk you, no. Are they going to do anything with that information? no.
Theives have FAR better ways to get the information they need about targets far more valuable than any of you would ever be. You use your real name every day, you show your credit card to minimum wage employee's at walmart every week, you hand your credit card to watiresses. You show your drivers license to bouncers.
People wear name tags to conventions; do they all lose thier identities, get stalked raped and die? No they dont.
People are blowing this into a rediculous situation. I personally am VERY glad that Blizzard is doing this, if not just so we can have precident on the internet of people using their real names.
You can actually find more about my personally by searching my character in WoW's name than my real name, but do I care if people can find out one picture of me from facebook and my music choices on last.fm? No I don't, because that means nothing. If anybody asked me for a picture I'd show them, if anybody asked me what music I listen to I'd say Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favourite band. People are far to paranoid, hopefully this becomes a reality check.
That said, I'm not sure how things work in America, but here, even with my name, you won't get my information so easilly.
You're missing the point. Anyone with a common name would be untrackable. Anyone with a somewhat uncommon name would be super easy to track.
If you had a very uncommon name I would be able to track you, I know you live in the Netherlands already. If you ever posted personal info on any Blizzard forum it would be even easier.
You think you're not online with info? think again, everyone is in some form or another
I said this elsewhere, think as a response to Jaime's article, but as a person with a very rare name (there are only two people with it that I know of...it's Irish and odd) I hate the idea of this. Fine if you're John or Mary Smith not so fine if you're not.
Also said there that when people signed up for WoW back at vanilla launch, there was no way of predicting the facebook-ization of the world, and no way of knowing that the info you gave to set up a game account (genuine info, since no-one unless proudly-tinfoil-hat-wearing would think to give fake info, and since Blizzard require faxed evidence of identity (passport / drivers license) to restore lost / hacked accounts) would at some vague and unspecified time in the future be broadcast with any post you made in that game's forums.
I hit the double whammy, I'm a female and I have a rare name. I don't want that name broadcast in association with a character or a game. So the easy response is opt out of RealID and/or refrain from posting in the Blizzard forums. Well, that's not a problem for me since I'm not subbed to any of their games at the moment, and I had no intention of going back to WoW for Cataclysm. I'll be opting out of it anyway, with SC2 and D3 coming along the path.
Basically, my opinion is that it's nobody's business but my own what I play, how often I play it (the argument about employers googling and finding WoW stats is a very good one), and what my toons are called. My Xfire is tied into my nick here, and my blogs are all under pseudonyms... if I go to these lengths to keep who I am (name, addy, job, etc.) seperate from any presence I may have in some forlorn corner of the web, then I'm not going to be best pleased at some company thinking they have a right to share my personal information at the drop of a hat.
So many people have such a warped, scared view of the world.
People steal ID's by swiping Credit Cards, sending out virus. Nobody is going to go through the effort to target you from a videogame forum where they ONLY get your first and last name. If somebody wanted to steal somebodies information they could open up ANY page of the phone book and get a better start.
Even if they can somehow manage to find information about you by just googling your name, what good does that do them? Are they going to stalk you, no. Are they going to do anything with that information? no.
Theives have FAR better ways to get the information they need about targets far more valuable than any of you would ever be. You use your real name every day, you show your credit card to minimum wage employee's at walmart every week, you hand your credit card to watiresses. You show your drivers license to bouncers.
People wear name tags to conventions; do they all lose thier identities, get stalked raped and die? No they dont.
People are blowing this into a rediculous situation. I personally am VERY glad that Blizzard is doing this, if not just so we can have precident on the internet of people using their real names.
You can actually find more about my personally by searching my character in WoW's name than my real name, but do I care if people can find out one picture of me from facebook and my music choices on last.fm? No I don't, because that means nothing. If anybody asked me for a picture I'd show them, if anybody asked me what music I listen to I'd say Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favourite band. People are far to paranoid, hopefully this becomes a reality check.
What I see on these RealID threads is far too many people who have fortunately not been on the receiving end of harassment in real life passing judgment on other people who may have grounds for their fears.
I think the internet is just sucking sympathy out of humanity instead of injecting it like we initially thought it would.
I know it's going to be shocking, but everybody playing MMOs is not like you. Some people have problems that would constitute a minority, or even unique problems. That does not mean they should be ignored. And speaking for them is asinine.
So you're an ordinary person with no worries and no need for a high level of privacy, good for you! Not everybody has to be ordinary, or part of the majority.
Salman Rushdie should be able to play a game and post on their boards in peace as well.
Come to think of it, I'm having a fun time right now imagining Salman Rushdie trolling WOW forums.
Let's say that only 99.9% of men have never sexually assaulted a woman, That means that ~6,000 rapists play WoW and have access to the forums.
Let's say that only 99.9% of men have never sexually assaulted a woman, That means that ~6,000 rapists play WoW and have access to the forums.
Girls are just as bad. The recent Youtube video of that girl with the crowbar is fucking insane. She actually said she would kill anyone if she found out where they live.
Most people threatening online are bluff, but a few won't be, and it's going to be Blizzard's fault if accidents happen (they have in China and Korea before).
Now that they linked Facebook to the WoW accounts it's easy to track people. Now that they give away their name, finding out where a forum user lives takes 1 click.
So many people have such a warped, scared view of the world.
People steal ID's by swiping Credit Cards, sending out virus. Nobody is going to go through the effort to target you from a videogame forum where they ONLY get your first and last name. If somebody wanted to steal somebodies information they could open up ANY page of the phone book and get a better start.
Even if they can somehow manage to find information about you by just googling your name, what good does that do them? Are they going to stalk you, no. Are they going to do anything with that information? no.
Theives have FAR better ways to get the information they need about targets far more valuable than any of you would ever be. You use your real name every day, you show your credit card to minimum wage employee's at walmart every week, you hand your credit card to watiresses. You show your drivers license to bouncers.
People wear name tags to conventions; do they all lose thier identities, get stalked raped and die? No they dont.
People are blowing this into a rediculous situation. I personally am VERY glad that Blizzard is doing this, if not just so we can have precident on the internet of people using their real names.
You can actually find more about my personally by searching my character in WoW's name than my real name, but do I care if people can find out one picture of me from facebook and my music choices on last.fm? No I don't, because that means nothing. If anybody asked me for a picture I'd show them, if anybody asked me what music I listen to I'd say Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favourite band. People are far to paranoid, hopefully this becomes a reality check.
What I see on these RealID threads is far too many people who have fortunately not been on the receiving end of harassment in real life passing judgment on other people who may have grounds for their fears.
I think the internet is just sucking sympathy out of humanity instead of injecting it like we initially thought it would.
I know it's going to be shocking, but everybody playing MMOs is not like you. Some people have problems that would constitute a minority, or even unique problems. That does not mean they should be ignored. And speaking for them is asinine.
So you're an ordinary person with no worries and no need for a high level of privacy, good for you! Not everybody has to be ordinary, or part of the majority.
Salman Rushdie should be able to play a game and post on their boards in peace as well.
Come to think of it, I'm having a fun time right now imagining Salman Rushdie trolling WOW forums.
Let's say that only 99.9% of men have never sexually assaulted a woman, That means that ~6,000 rapists play WoW and have access to the forums.
Also pedophiles. What's the age limit to play WoW? How many parents sign off to let their kids play that are under 18?
So many people have such a warped, scared view of the world.
People steal ID's by swiping Credit Cards, sending out virus. Nobody is going to go through the effort to target you from a videogame forum where they ONLY get your first and last name. If somebody wanted to steal somebodies information they could open up ANY page of the phone book and get a better start.
Even if they can somehow manage to find information about you by just googling your name, what good does that do them? Are they going to stalk you, no. Are they going to do anything with that information? no.
Theives have FAR better ways to get the information they need about targets far more valuable than any of you would ever be. You use your real name every day, you show your credit card to minimum wage employee's at walmart every week, you hand your credit card to watiresses. You show your drivers license to bouncers.
People wear name tags to conventions; do they all lose thier identities, get stalked raped and die? No they dont.
People are blowing this into a rediculous situation. I personally am VERY glad that Blizzard is doing this, if not just so we can have precident on the internet of people using their real names.
You can actually find more about my personally by searching my character in WoW's name than my real name, but do I care if people can find out one picture of me from facebook and my music choices on last.fm? No I don't, because that means nothing. If anybody asked me for a picture I'd show them, if anybody asked me what music I listen to I'd say Red Hot Chili Peppers are my favourite band. People are far to paranoid, hopefully this becomes a reality check.
What I see on these RealID threads is far too many people who have fortunately not been on the receiving end of harassment in real life passing judgment on other people who may have grounds for their fears.
I think the internet is just sucking sympathy out of humanity instead of injecting it like we initially thought we would.
I know it's going to be shocking, but everybody playing MMOs is not like you. Some people have problems that would constitute a minority, or even unique problems. That does not mean they should be ignored. And speaking for them is asinine.
So you're an ordinary person with no worries and no need for a high level of privacy, good for you! Not everybody has to be ordinary, or part of the majority.
Salman Rushdie should be able to play a game and post on their boards in peace as well.
Come to think of it, I'm having a fun time right now imagining Salman Rushdie trolling WOW forums.
The issue here is that if you have some sort of bizzare security situation... Don't post on the forums.
If you are going to make an ass of yourself and make the forums a worse place for other people, then you should have to deal with the consiquences.
What makes Salman Rushdie so special? Sure hes the only one with his name or one of 5 people. But who is going to target him. Who is going to read through the WoW forums and find a guy with a name that "seems rare" search the name, then from that information target him.
This same guy would have a MUCH easier time just going into the phonebook, finding a name, grabbing the full name address and phone number and getting off to a much better start.
Well, I guess you don't know enough about Rushdie then. He is special, believe me. And I'm pretty sure he'd not have an easy time in the game or on the forums if his realID was known.
As for "Who's going to do that?" : See my quoted post above. I understand it may seem pretty unlikely from where you're standing, but that really does not make it so, it just means you're not familiar with that kind of danger. And no, it has nothing to do with trolling forums (I hope you got that that was a joke), it's purely about making your identity public.
My point is primarily about opening the door to in-game hate and real-life hate feeding off of each other. This change brings about a security issue; and saying "well, don't post on the forums then!" is just as wrong in principle as saying "well, we made carrying firearms free in this town and some nutcases assault your kind here, so maybe you don't want to go out. Hey, you have a choice there: Go out, or don't!"
Of course people have security issues outside of the games they play, too... This does not justify having yet another one on top of those - in fact, it's all the more reason to not give them an additional cause for worry!
Let's say that only 99.9% of men have never sexually assaulted a woman, That means that ~6,000 rapists play WoW and have access to the forums.
You don't know how many men that play WoW. Your math attempt is moot.
Blizzard say that they have 11 million subscribers. I'm assuming that at least 55% of those are male. you know that the "~" character means "approximately", right? I make no pretence at precision, but I'd be prepared to bet that my calculation is correct within a factor of 2.
I admit it's a strange solution to a common problem, and not the best one in my opinion. I voted (Neutral), though I don't think Blizzard will "fix" anything after feedback; if it's overwhelmingly negative and trolling is still rampant, they'll probably just reverse the change instead of sticking with it. In theory, it makes sense. Animosity is a free pass for acting like an asshat with no "real" consequences. Removing that animosity might cut down on the asshattery (word?). I've heard that you can choose whether to use it or not, which defeats the purpose, but if you forced it on everyone, many people would understandably be upset.
I voted (Nay) World of Warcraft's popularity and the state of information security make this incredibly dangerous.
After recently getting my account hacked, this can only make it easier. There are so many reasons why this is a bad thing that it makes you wonder what idiot came up with it. realID in game is an opt-in only. This forum realID thing is also an opt-in only, but therein is the rub, because the only way to use the forum now is to agree to Blizzards plans to make your first and last name public. For me this is not an issue, but for many others it can and will cause problems for them on numerous levels. Boneheaded plan is saying it kindly, but that is what this is and I bet if we dig deep enough you'll find this is all Activisions doing.
BTW I still believe my account was hacked from the inside. I think there are people that work for Blizzards customer support that are making money selling gold, items and characters to Gold Farming companies. Tell me to wear a tin foil hat all you want, but to many people got there accounts hacked to easily and they never once found a trojan or keylogger on their computer - and neither did I. It seems to happen to inactive accounts more than anyone else...I wonder why that is? I'll tell you why. You do the math. $6.95 US times however many accounts adds up to almost $80 million dollars for those authenticators. That is no poultry sum of money. Blizzard is a corporation and with the merger of it to Activision(a money grubbing corporation for certain) then we can bet this whole autenticator business is merely a money grab. Hack peoples accounts from within the company, generate fear and force people to buy an authenticator.
I know...tin foil hat right...right....I do not think so.
I love tin foil hat theories. I got my own about a collaboration between Blizzard and a Gold Selling service. Now the things that made me believe that is that for some reason it was the only gold selling service who prominantly survived throughout my year of playing . (advertisements for other sites came and go , like if something drove them away and that while 1 just didn't want to leave, hmmm...) .
So ye , i actually believe you. But than again i'm a fan of tin foil hat theories (as long as there is some logic backing it up...)
Do you know why I strongly believe me theory. I kept getting an in game email from a Gold Farmer named Brieanna and kept reporting it is spam...to this day I still get emails asking me to go to their website for the lowest prices in WoW Gold...guess who sends it? Brieanna!
I voted (Nay) World of Warcraft's popularity and the state of information security make this incredibly dangerous.
After recently getting my account hacked, this can only make it easier. There are so many reasons why this is a bad thing that it makes you wonder what idiot came up with it. realID in game is an opt-in only. This forum realID thing is also an opt-in only, but therein is the rub, because the only way to use the forum now is to agree to Blizzards plans to make your first and last name public. For me this is not an issue, but for many others it can and will cause problems for them on numerous levels. Boneheaded plan is saying it kindly, but that is what this is and I bet if we dig deep enough you'll find this is all Activisions doing.
BTW I still believe my account was hacked from the inside. I think there are people that work for Blizzards customer support that are making money selling gold, items and characters to Gold Farming companies. Tell me to wear a tin foil hat all you want, but to many people got there accounts hacked to easily and they never once found a trojan or keylogger on their computer - and neither did I. It seems to happen to inactive accounts more than anyone else...I wonder why that is? I'll tell you why. You do the math. $6.95 US times however many accounts adds up to almost $80 million dollars for those authenticators. That is no poultry sum of money. Blizzard is a corporation and with the merger of it to Activision(a money grubbing corporation for certain) then we can bet this whole autenticator business is merely a money grab. Hack peoples accounts from within the company, generate fear and force people to buy an authenticator.
I know...tin foil hat right...right....I do not think so.
I love tin foil hat theories. I got my own about a collaboration between Blizzard and a Gold Selling service. Now the things that made me believe that is that for some reason it was the only gold selling service who prominantly survived throughout my year of playing . (advertisements for other sites came and go , like if something drove them away and that while 1 just didn't want to leave, hmmm...) .
So ye , i actually believe you. But than again i'm a fan of tin foil hat theories (as long as there is some logic backing it up...)
Do you know why I strongly believe me theory. I kept getting an in game email from a Gold Farmer named Brieanna and kept reporting it is spam...to this day I still get emails asking me to go to their website for the lowest prices in WoW Gold...guess who sends it? Brieanna!
Maybe "Brieanna" is really a sentient, networked AI that is made up of multiple entities that are not independent and are all "Brieanna." I have a friend named Brieanna, what a shame. I didn't know she was a robot.
Sorry, just played ME2 and have geth on the brain.
There are crazy people in the world. you don't think there's anyone playing WoW that's crazy enough to try and harm someone for real because of something said or done to them in a game?
Kicked out of a guild, cyber then post it and reveal you're the same sex as the other person, gold scam, etc. etc.
it's already happened in China where real world violence has erupted over online games.
I think anyone that posts on the forum and exposes themselves to all the nutcases out there with their real name is stupid.
Comments
Okay, where to start.
First off, I think you should be careful who you call an idiot. These are professionals, guys who do this for a living. Blizzard is a huge company. Im sure they only afford the best.
Secondly, they have already said it won't be retroactive, that would be rediculous and obviously problematic.
Thirdly, your first and last name, especially for an optional video game forum is not something the courts will be interested in. The forum is completely optional; 99% of wow players probably never post even once their. If you want to post something, you may think twice before being an absolute tool.
Its totally optional. WoW forums will be a place that people who are willing to use their first and last name as an identifier can post. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then don't. Its easy not to.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
What I see on these RealID threads is far too many people who have fortunately not been on the receiving end of harassment in real life passing judgment on other people who may have grounds for their fears.
I think the internet is just sucking sympathy out of humanity instead of injecting it like we initially thought it would.
I know it's going to be shocking, but everybody playing MMOs is not like you. Some people have problems that would constitute a minority, or even unique problems. That does not mean they should be ignored. And speaking for them is asinine.
So you're an ordinary person with no worries and no need for a high level of privacy, good for you! Not everybody has to be ordinary, or part of the majority.
Salman Rushdie should be able to play a game and post on their boards in peace as well.
Come to think of it, I'm having a fun time right now imagining Salman Rushdie trolling WOW forums.
Well, AT&T is bigger than Blizzard, and thought they had it in the bag also with all their smug lawyers, but they got their asses handed to them multiple times when it came to the TOS / EULA.
AT&T even appealed, but the courts still ruled that the TOS / EULA is non legally binding without a digital signature / signature. It actually set a precedent a year or so ago. However, for some reason people seem to forget about these cases. Even current lawyers seem to forget about these cases.
The issue here is that if you have some sort of bizzare security situation... Don't post on the forums.
If you are going to make an ass of yourself and make the forums a worse place for other people, then you should have to deal with the consiquences.
What makes Salman Rushdie so special? Sure hes the only one with his name or one of 5 people. But who is going to target him. Who is going to read through the WoW forums and find a guy with a name that "seems rare" search the name, then from that information target him.
This same guy would have a MUCH easier time just going into the phonebook, finding a name, grabbing the full name address and phone number and getting off to a much better start.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
I think there should be one username instead of being able to use several character names from in game. I don't think it is a good idea to display real names, don't know what Blizzard were thinking when they came up with this. Though it does smell of them going down the shitter like they have been since joining activision.
This isn't using a TOS/EULA to sign away peoples rights, this is a PUBLIC forum requiring people to WILLINGLY provide their name to post.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Ah but you forget, in order to post in the forum you must agree to a TOS / EULA already. However, Blizzard does not use a digital signature / signature when accepting the TOS / EULA. Thus, it is not legally binding according to the courts.
Also, the forums are not PUBLIC! They are private and are held on a private server run by a private corporation. Thus, they are literally taking away your privacy rights by displaying your name publicly to all users signed in or not signed in. It wouldn't be so bad if they only displayed it if you were signed in. However, they are going to display it even if the user is not signed in. Therefore, any hacker / malicious person could come to the site and find any name they wanted that posted on the forum to target that person for identiy theft or any other possible malicious things.
Where did you get that information? Courts in the US have generally held TOS/ EULAs as legally binding as long as they did not contain clauses that violated current law. So if there are laws that prohibit them from posting people's names even with their consent then the TOS is invalid. Otherwise there is no legal issue there.
Digital Signatures are great if there is a dispute whether you signed an electronic document or not but in this case the mere fact that you are playing the game, indicates that you clicked ACCEPT.
The whole point is not wheather people's security is at risk, it is that people have heard so much about identity theft and they are concerned.
Blizzard may have good lawyers but their PR people are idiots to let this happen. As usual this is another case where "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" It will not stop trolling, it will do more damage to people who try to follow the rules. If Blizzard really cared about the crap on their forums they should have had better moderation. I guess they did not want to spend the time and effort to clean up their forums.
The Blizzard forums have gone up in flames !!! It will be interesting to see what happens.
I forget where, but it was either in Oklahoma, Kansas, or Texas. The courts ruled, that since AT&T did not have a signature / digital signature confirming the person signed the TOS / EULA. Then the TOS / EULA was null and void and did not apply to the person, even though the person was an AT&T customer. Like I said, it was a precedent set 1 - 2 years ago. However, somehow people seem to forget that it ever happened.
Post your name then.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I said this elsewhere, think as a response to Jaime's article, but as a person with a very rare name (there are only two people with it that I know of...it's Irish and odd) I hate the idea of this. Fine if you're John or Mary Smith not so fine if you're not.
Also said there that when people signed up for WoW back at vanilla launch, there was no way of predicting the facebook-ization of the world, and no way of knowing that the info you gave to set up a game account (genuine info, since no-one unless proudly-tinfoil-hat-wearing would think to give fake info, and since Blizzard require faxed evidence of identity (passport / drivers license) to restore lost / hacked accounts) would at some vague and unspecified time in the future be broadcast with any post you made in that game's forums.
I hit the double whammy, I'm a female and I have a rare name. I don't want that name broadcast in association with a character or a game. So the easy response is opt out of RealID and/or refrain from posting in the Blizzard forums. Well, that's not a problem for me since I'm not subbed to any of their games at the moment, and I had no intention of going back to WoW for Cataclysm. I'll be opting out of it anyway, with SC2 and D3 coming along the path.
Basically, my opinion is that it's nobody's business but my own what I play, how often I play it (the argument about employers googling and finding WoW stats is a very good one), and what my toons are called. My Xfire is tied into my nick here, and my blogs are all under pseudonyms... if I go to these lengths to keep who I am (name, addy, job, etc.) seperate from any presence I may have in some forlorn corner of the web, then I'm not going to be best pleased at some company thinking they have a right to share my personal information at the drop of a hat.
Let's say that only 99.9% of men have never sexually assaulted a woman, That means that ~6,000 rapists play WoW and have access to the forums.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Girls are just as bad. The recent Youtube video of that girl with the crowbar is fucking insane. She actually said she would kill anyone if she found out where they live.
Most people threatening online are bluff, but a few won't be, and it's going to be Blizzard's fault if accidents happen (they have in China and Korea before).
Now that they linked Facebook to the WoW accounts it's easy to track people. Now that they give away their name, finding out where a forum user lives takes 1 click.
Also pedophiles. What's the age limit to play WoW? How many parents sign off to let their kids play that are under 18?
You don't know how many men that play WoW. Your math attempt is moot.
Eleanor Rigby.
Well, I guess you don't know enough about Rushdie then. He is special, believe me.
And I'm pretty sure he'd not have an easy time in the game or on the forums if his realID was known.
As for "Who's going to do that?" : See my quoted post above. I understand it may seem pretty unlikely from where you're standing, but that really does not make it so, it just means you're not familiar with that kind of danger. And no, it has nothing to do with trolling forums (I hope you got that that was a joke), it's purely about making your identity public.
My point is primarily about opening the door to in-game hate and real-life hate feeding off of each other. This change brings about a security issue; and saying "well, don't post on the forums then!" is just as wrong in principle as saying "well, we made carrying firearms free in this town and some nutcases assault your kind here, so maybe you don't want to go out. Hey, you have a choice there: Go out, or don't!"
Of course people have security issues outside of the games they play, too... This does not justify having yet another one on top of those - in fact, it's all the more reason to not give them an additional cause for worry!
Wonder what happens when 5 or 6 maniacs show up at your front door to kill, or do bodily harm to you?
Do they turn on each other? Do they use a d20 to see who goes first?
Should i put one of those number machines outside my apartment so there is no dispute who was there to kill me first?
Blizzard say that they have 11 million subscribers. I'm assuming that at least 55% of those are male. you know that the "~" character means "approximately", right? I make no pretence at precision, but I'd be prepared to bet that my calculation is correct within a factor of 2.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Brings a whole new meaning to "LFG" doesn't it?
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I admit it's a strange solution to a common problem, and not the best one in my opinion. I voted (Neutral), though I don't think Blizzard will "fix" anything after feedback; if it's overwhelmingly negative and trolling is still rampant, they'll probably just reverse the change instead of sticking with it. In theory, it makes sense. Animosity is a free pass for acting like an asshat with no "real" consequences. Removing that animosity might cut down on the asshattery (word?). I've heard that you can choose whether to use it or not, which defeats the purpose, but if you forced it on everyone, many people would understandably be upset.
Do you know why I strongly believe me theory. I kept getting an in game email from a Gold Farmer named Brieanna and kept reporting it is spam...to this day I still get emails asking me to go to their website for the lowest prices in WoW Gold...guess who sends it? Brieanna!
Maybe "Brieanna" is really a sentient, networked AI that is made up of multiple entities that are not independent and are all "Brieanna." I have a friend named Brieanna, what a shame. I didn't know she was a robot.
Sorry, just played ME2 and have geth on the brain.
There are crazy people in the world. you don't think there's anyone playing WoW that's crazy enough to try and harm someone for real because of something said or done to them in a game?
Kicked out of a guild, cyber then post it and reveal you're the same sex as the other person, gold scam, etc. etc.
it's already happened in China where real world violence has erupted over online games.
I think anyone that posts on the forum and exposes themselves to all the nutcases out there with their real name is stupid.