Perhaps the argument isn't about "I have nothing to hide."
Maybe it's about "i shouldn't have to hide anything."
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
B. Blizzard Entertainment has the right to obtain certain identification information about your computer and its operating system, including the identification numbers of your hard drives, central processing unit, IP addresses and operating systems, for identification purposes without any further notice to you.
C. Blizzard Entertainment has the right to obtain "non-personal" data from your connection to World of Warcraft in order to make certain demographic assumptions regarding the users of World of Warcraft without any further notice to you.
D. In order to assist Blizzard Entertainment to police users who may use "hacks," or "cheats" to gain an advantage over other players, you acknowledge that Blizzard Entertainment shall have the right to obtain certain information from your computer and its component parts, including your computer's random access memory, video card, central processing unit, and storage devices. This information will only be used for the purpose of identifying "cheaters," and for no other reason.
this is all of what is said in the ToA about this subject. why would they need my id numbers, ip address, connection data, and i saw where they were searching history, temp files, cookies, etc. they do not need that info or even to scan it...i beleive they are selling the info to 3rd parties. i was thinking about buying this after playing the 14 day trial from pc gamer, but im definately not going to now.
Originally posted by jayheld90 .i beleive they are selling the info to 3rd parties
They are not doing that. They are a major company that has everything to loose on doing something like that. That is just a very stupid assumption. I don't believe anyone is paying for info like that. Hell somebody who wants info like that, they just have to make a free pr0n site with info tracking and they would have more info gathered in 2 days than blizzard can supply them for a year. Or they just hack some credit card companies site and gather info from there, like that spammer that is in court in Usa now.
Master_Shake I respect your opinion and your preferences. But Like you said I'm more interested in quality than quantity. I had a really good review about Blizzard (They made excelent games, truly amazing games), but Blizz screw it. They only think about money, the support they give to the WoW is so horrible that I know at least 20-25 friends quited to play other games. Of course all the companys think about the money, but Blizz priority right now is only the money and that make me said about it. The lines of thoughts in Blizz are: Money -> Authority -> Espionage -> Market Interests -> Game Dev -> Fun in The Game -> Players Opinion.
Seems to be that there're other companys in the market that are more interested in players opinion/fun in the game then fcking money. Again, Blizz want to recover positive feedback ? Cut the fees, release quality expansions and good new content (charge for it), stop acting like they can do whatever they want (even if they can) and some humble atitude is welcome. Sorry about the offtopic.
About the topic: Again another atitude from Blizz that are screwing their image among players. There're other ways to combat hackers/cheaters than invading others privacy. In the begining Blizz were doing a pretty nice job for the 1º MMO game, but start to screw it with arrogant impositions. A said tale for Blizz. Enough about this
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm The Originator, You're The Imitator. I'm The Prototype, You're The Carbon Copy. I'm The REAL... You're The FAKE !
Originally posted by TookyG You don't have to let them scan your system. Just click the "Decline" button or whatever it is when you see the EULA/TOS and there you have it. They can't scan your system because you're not playing.
I understand why Blizzard deems this necessary to keep the game fair and safe for the masses but I do still have a concern after reading all the posts in this thread.
What happens if you buy the game and then do not agree to this or any part of the TOS?
Are you just out your $50??? How are you supposed to get your money back? Many stores only take back open game exchanges for the same title. I am pretty sure you could get it from Blizzard but who wants to go through all that trouble? Should sensitive TOS issues be printed on the outside of the box so you can see them before buying? I guarantee that game companies would absolutely CRINGE if they had to put something like "Playing Requires Computer Scanning" on the outside of the box!!!
After playing games for 25 years now I have only bought a couple of games that I had to get a refund for because of the TOS. One was a small 39MB downloadable game and I had no problem getting my money back. The other I bought at a store a long time ago and cannot remember what game it was but I never did get my money back.
My point is the TOS should be available before purchasing the game. That way you know what you are getting into. Then if you agree to those terms and click the "Accept" button you have no recourse on any TOS issues.
------------------------------------------- Control is an illusion!
Originally posted by reddog00 Originally posted by TookyG You don't have to let them scan your system. Just click the "Decline" button or whatever it is when you see the EULA/TOS and there you have it. They can't scan your system because you're not playing. I understand why Blizzard deems this necessary to keep the game fair and safe for the masses but I do still have a concern after reading all the posts in this thread. What happens if you buy the game and then do not agree to this or any part of the TOS? Are you just out your $50??? How are you supposed to get your money back? Many stores only take back open game exchanges for the same title. I am pretty sure you could get it from Blizzard but who wants to go through all that trouble? Should sensitive TOS issues be printed on the outside of the box so you can see them before buying? I guarantee that game companies would absolutely CRINGE if they had to put something like "Playing Requires Computer Scanning" on the outside of the box!!! After playing games for 25 years now I have only bought a couple of games that I had to get a refund for because of the TOS. One was a small 39MB downloadable game and I had no problem getting my money back. The other I bought at a store a long time ago and cannot remember what game it was but I never did get my money back. My point is the TOS should be available before purchasing the game. That way you know what you are getting into. Then if you agree to those terms and click the "Accept" button you have no recourse on any TOS issues.
This is a great point, and one one of my friends brought up.
One of the posters, and I don't have the post on hand to quote it, claimed the following in particular -
*In the process of installing the game late Saturday, he was taken to the screen to activate his account and paid for 3 months in advance.
*Then he was taken to the patches.
*Finally, the ToS agreement.
*Being late, he overlooked the part about Blizzard having full access to your system to scan it and didn't discover it until Thursday.
*He did not like this, declined the ToS when he read it again, and cancelled his account.
Is he due a refund?
It seems the argument turned to whether or not the ToS could be called a 'contract', and recent evidence says that yes the ToS is a contract.
The player then went to consult an attorney who advised him that in his opinion - Blizzard Entertainment is in breach of contract, because they aren't allowed to force you to surrender your rights to use their product and this means the contract is illegal.
And secondly because the guy didn't understand what he was signing, he was therefore not competent enough in contractual law to be considered an active party to the contract.
Both of these problems creates a situation where for this guy the contract is null and void. If the contract doesn't exist, then Blizzard must refund his money becuse it's in the non-existent contract that states they will not.
I mean this is getting more and more interesting the more I hear about it hehe.
Oh yeah I forgot - because he activated his account before being taken to the ToS, he is supposedly crap out of luck because he paid before reading the terms of the contract.
But this is not a legal thing to do and is Blizzard's fault. So yeah, in this case this means that Blizzard is commiting fraud if they do not refund this guy's money.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Originally posted by Wepps Originally posted by reddog00 Originally posted by TookyG You don't have to let them scan your system. Just click the "Decline" button or whatever it is when you see the EULA/TOS and there you have it. They can't scan your system because you're not playing. I understand why Blizzard deems this necessary to keep the game fair and safe for the masses but I do still have a concern after reading all the posts in this thread. What happens if you buy the game and then do not agree to this or any part of the TOS? Are you just out your $50??? How are you supposed to get your money back? Many stores only take back open game exchanges for the same title. I am pretty sure you could get it from Blizzard but who wants to go through all that trouble? Should sensitive TOS issues be printed on the outside of the box so you can see them before buying? I guarantee that game companies would absolutely CRINGE if they had to put something like "Playing Requires Computer Scanning" on the outside of the box!!! After playing games for 25 years now I have only bought a couple of games that I had to get a refund for because of the TOS. One was a small 39MB downloadable game and I had no problem getting my money back. The other I bought at a store a long time ago and cannot remember what game it was but I never did get my money back. My point is the TOS should be available before purchasing the game. That way you know what you are getting into. Then if you agree to those terms and click the "Accept" button you have no recourse on any TOS issues.
This is a great point, and one one of my friends brought up.
One of the posters, and I don't have the post on hand to quote it, claimed the following in particular -
*In the process of installing the game late Saturday, he was taken to the screen to activate his account and paid for 3 months in advance.
*Then he was taken to the patches.
*Finally, the ToS agreement.
*Being late, he overlooked the part about Blizzard having full access to your system to scan it and didn't discover it until Thursday.
*He did not like this, declined the ToS when he read it again, and cancelled his account.
Is he due a refund?
It seems the argument turned to whether or not the ToS could be called a 'contract', and recent evidence says that yes the ToS is a contract.
The player then went to consult an attorney who advised him that in his opinion - Blizzard Entertainment is in breach of contract, because they aren't allowed to force you to surrender your rights to use their product and this means the contract is illegal.
And secondly because the guy didn't understand what he was signing, he was therefore not competent enough in contractual law to be considered an active party to the contract.
Both of these problems creates a situation where for this guy the contract is null and void. If the contract doesn't exist, then Blizzard must refund his money becuse it's in the non-existent contract that states they will not.
I mean this is getting more and more interesting the more I hear about it hehe.
Oh yeah I forgot - because he activated his account before being taken to the ToS, he is supposedly crap out of luck because he paid before reading the terms of the contract.
But this is not a legal thing to do and is Blizzard's fault. So yeah, in this case this means that Blizzard is commiting fraud if they do not refund this guy's money.
In the manual wich all players have access to before they create account and even install a game it says: that the game requires internet access and that you must accept blizzards terms. 2 places in the manual warn players about the terms of use. It is also printed on the outside of the package, that you have to accept the terms of use. You can read the whole Terms of Use in the Readme file or on the net. So I he wants to take legal actions against blizzard he won't have any luck.
taken from the readme:
You may view the Terms of Use by visiting the following website: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.shtml. If you do not agree with the Terms of Use, then (i) you should not register for an Account to play the Game, and (ii) you should contact Licensor's customer service at (800) 592-5499 to arrange to return the Game for a full refund of the purchase price within thirty (30) days of the original purchase. Once you accept the Terms of Use and register an Account, the purchase price of the Game will not be refunded to you if you choose not to continue the monthly subscription to the Service.
Gmworker is posting illegal stuff in several threads and should be banned.
I have a friend who showed me that box, and exactly where it's printed that you are required to agree to a EULA to play the game.
LOL I have 20/20 vision, and I could not read that! What kind of fonts are those, microscopic?
Personally, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking Blizzard is trying to get away with one huge scam.
I mean to say that, if we were talking about a game that affected some 30,000 players, like DAoc, that's one thing.
But on the scale of WoW??? 3.5 million players, the vast majority of which have no clue what they are agreeing to?
I THINK Blizzard has more to answer for than you suspect. For one thing, I know several people personally who on Friday sent all the necessary information to the government requesting an investigation into allegations of fraud, and violation of privacy.
Now, having a certain interest in this because I love MMOs, I reviewed the Star Wars Galaxies info, and they are claiming the right to sell your information, that is exactly what they are doing. But in online privacy litigation, this has rarely been considered an illagal act. Passively sending cookies to search personal info has I believe in only 2 cases in California been withheld by the courts for furtheer review, but I think in only one of those cases did the plaintiff win.
Blizzard, though, is demanding full access to your entire computer, for the purpose of actively scanning all your files and processses.
This has never been done, certainly not to that depth. I don't think the players understand what they have signed away by agreeing to those terms.
Because of this, and the fact that SOE attempted the same thing a couple years back and were delivered the smackdown by uncle sam for it, I think Blizzard is in for a rude awakening.
I mean, it's probably a matter of Blizzard just having no experience whatsoever in an MMO. I played this back near release. It was okay, i thought the game was great in comparison to some others. It's not perfect. Blizzard has a tendency to view the MMO as an RPG, and again I'm not surprised. They FORCE players into a box in which if they choose to apply tactical thinking to a given combat situation, they are termed 'exploiters' and banned from the game. The Players playing the game normally are experiencing what it's like to play an RPG, not an MMO. They aren't playing the way the developers intended them to.
This is terrible as far as MMO design philosophy. Limiting the players in everything they do removes much content from an MMO design.
But this just is more proof of Blizzard's lack of experience.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Oh, and honestly if I bothered to read the ToS at the time I was playing it, I would never have agreed to it either. I had no idea Blizz would try to pull this crap.
But luckly, as far as I know they weren't scanning systems at the time.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Well your 20/20 vision is bad then. I read without problems and found that text 5 seconds after that I checked my box to see if it said something about that. It's even placed there where you open the box.
the whole thing is also handed to you while you create your account, and you have to accept it when you create the account.
I don't think any legal actions will lead to anything (Or I may never know, it's all fucked over there in the states). I'm sure Vinvendi and Blizzards lawyers have spent hundreds of hours making that document and I'm sure there are no loop holes. They make these kind of documents for each single game the make.
And If you ever have listened to what Blizzard says you would have known that Blizzard doesn't search your whole computer. The just look at proccesses related to Wow and through your Ram.
Originally posted by Phoenixs Well your 20/20 vision is bad then. I read without problems and found that text 5 seconds after that I checked my box to see if it said something about that. It's even placed there where you open the box.And you shouldn't have any problems reading this:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.htmlthe whole thing is also handed to you while you create your account, and you have to accept it when you create the account. I don't think any legal actions will lead to anything (Or I may never know, it's all fucked over there in the states). I'm sure Vinvendi and Blizzards lawyers have spent hundreds of hours making that document and I'm sure there are no loop holes. They make these kind of documents for each single game the make.And If you ever have listened to what Blizzard says you would have known that Blizzard doesn't search your whole computer. The just look at proccesses related to Wow and through your Ram.
Sure, if they had proven themselves responsible and reliable in the past.
But take the time to find the legal cases surrounding Starcraft, and what occurred there.
Without their knowledge, they actually sold the players' information illegally, and were forced to pay for it.
What's to stop them from doing that again? Did they magically see the light, and would never do such a thing ever again?
You just CAN'T TRUST MANAGEMENT. And if you do, you're a fool for it. No offense to you personally Phoenixs.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
I don't trust all management, but I can't see why one of the 3-4 biggest game companies in the world as I see it, correct me if I'm wrong:
1. EA Games 2. Ubisoft 3. Vivendi Universal Games <-- Owns Blizzard
should start with fraud/criminal activities? I mean they have all to loose on it, nothing to gain on it. The biggest companies are the ones that draw all the attention from the goverment. It's against the biggest companies goverments take actions and investigations. Not the ones with 20k customers or less. And like I have said many times Wepps, they don't collect personal info, how should Blizzard be able to sell our personal info illegally when they don't have that info?
Originally posted by Phoenixs I don't trust all management, but I can't see why one of the 3-4 biggest game companies in the world as I see it, correct me if I'm wrong:1. EA Games 2. Ubisoft 3. Vivendi Universal Games <-- Owns Blizzardshould start with fraud/criminal activities? I mean they have all to loose on it, nothing to gain on it. The biggest companies are the ones that draw all the attention from the goverment. It's against the biggest companies goverments take actions and investigations. Not the ones with 20k customers or less. And like I have said many times Wepps, they don't collect personal info, how should Blizzard be able to sell our personal info illegally when they don't have that info?
There's one flaw in your logic.
You're using logic to discuss company management
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
For starters, there is no legality issue. You are consenting to Blizzard scanning your hard drive (by agreeing to the Terms of Service). As someone posted a few pages back, it is similar to consenting a personal search in a concert. And the WoW client is trying its best to make you read the EULA like you should have.
According to Blizzard's representatives and ToS, none of your stored data or personal information is sent back, therefore there is no privacy threat. If you had evidence that your stored data or personal information is actually being sent to Blizzard then it would indeed be a breach of privacy, much like tracking cookies that are often found on porn sites that gather personal information. But from what has been said so far, the WoW client simply scans your hard drive but does not send any of your own data back. You're only speculating whether Blizzard will keep the agreement or not.
Currently playing: * City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant. * City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
Originally posted by deggilator I think you're making a big deal out of nothing.For starters, there is no legality issue. You are consenting to Blizzard scanning your hard drive (by agreeing to the Terms of Service). As someone posted a few pages back, it is similar to consenting a personal search in a concert. And the WoW client is trying its best to make you read the EULA like you should have.According to Blizzard's representatives and ToS, none of your stored data or personal information is sent back, therefore there is no privacy threat. If you had evidence that your stored data or personal information is actually being sent to Blizzard then it would indeed be a breach of privacy, much like tracking cookies that are often found on porn sites that gather personal information. But from what has been said so far, the WoW client simply scans your hard drive but does not send any of your own data back. You're only speculating whether Blizzard will keep the agreement or not.
Originally posted by deggilator According to Blizzard's representatives and ToS, none of your stored data or personal information is sent back, therefore there is no privacy threat. If you had evidence that your stored data or personal information is actually being sent to Blizzard then it would indeed be a breach of privacy, much like tracking cookies that are often found on porn sites that gather personal information. But from what has been said so far, the WoW client simply scans your hard drive but does not send any of your own data back. You're only speculating whether Blizzard will keep the agreement or not.
According to that statement, then, Blizzard is scanning your files and processes.
But sending nothing back to them.
Erm, why scan in the first place then? This makes no sense to me.
If I'm a player, let's say, and they scan my hard drive. What are they looking for that they have no interest in retrieving?
/shrug
Sounds fishy to me.
edit - and if they are sending it back, then it can be intercepted because of the current encryption regulations. I have a friend who played sitting with me right now. He says that Blizzard was unable to stop a trojan virus from scanning your system and retrieving your password.
Well, if they can't secure THAT, then they can't secure ANYTHING. They are just opening the door for hackers to get direct access to you.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Originally posted by Phoenixs When it finds something malicious it will tell blizzard: "hacks being used" etc, and then they will kick your client of the server.
Wait a minute.
Is WOW.exe running on the client or the server?
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Wow.exe is the exe file of your client. It's running on your computer. With saying "kick your client of the server" I meant close the access to the server for your client.
Originally posted by Phoenixs Wow.exe is the exe file of your client. It's running on your computer.
Okay now I understand why they are saying it doesn't work then.
Anything running on your client can be prevented from searching the files where a cheat may exist. It can also be disabled or fooled with in any number of ways.
A hacker cannot access the Blizzard server-side software in any way (in the long assumption they know what they are doing).
He CAN access the client-side software though.
So, you are agreeing to allow Blizzard Spyware on your system, apparently for no other reason but for them to apply a procedure for identifying cheaters - that cheaters, and their 3rd party programmers, can disable anyway.
A really good team of developers can create checks and balances in the system on the server side, where a cheater could run their program but there is no way it would have an effect on their avatar or the environment. This is really the only true method of preventing these kinds of hacks, outside actually designing the game in such a manner as to nullify the reason to use those hacks in the first place.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Yep blizzard is only scanning processes looking for known hacks. Said that back on page three. I speculate the only info taken is "wowhack.exe is operating...commencing shutdown....pwned." As far as not trusting them I gave them my credit card number. They could do so much with that than any other information i have on my computer. Take money, look into my buying habits, personal info.
Originally posted by gmantis Yep blizzard is only scanning processes looking for known hacks. Said that back on page three. I speculate the only info taken is "wowhack.exe is operating...commencing shutdown....pwned." As far as not trusting them I gave them my credit card number. They could do so much with that than any other information i have on my computer. Take money, look into my buying habits, personal info.
Sure, but rules and regulations regarding the legalities of owning that account information are quite specific, and violations of these would likely shut down the company. The possibility of jail terms and heavy fines are a great motivator!
Rules regarding what constitutes privacy violations in the Internet arena are very weak, easily exploited.
Because I've taken interest in this subject, I've done some research regarding this issue in the last couple days. The results are enlightening. I recommend doing so yourselves.
Regardless of this, there is a line somewhere that can be crossed. Given what happened to SOE a couple years back regarding this exact same issue, I believe that Blizzard has crossed that line.
But I have no personal grudge or anything, I just believe that Blizzard is violating the law on this issue. I think game development personnel everywhere are glued to their monitors waiting to see the result of this. It determines the limit to which a company can go with their online service concerning privacy.
For these people it might just be more important to them than to you as players. On the other hand, maybe it is a major issue for the players. That remains to be seen.
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
The problem as I see it is not that Blizz does this, because I can kinda undersand that, allthough they should have been more upfront about it, all this cloak and dagger feeds the Conspi-crowd.
The real problem is probably that wow.exe or whatever file runs that scan does so freely, neither my zone labs or kaspersky raised an eyebrow, and even if they did when I see wow.exe I just click "remember" and "allow".
It does not seem all that difficult to backgineer that and get access to whatever info blizz is scanning for, even though blizz will never recieive it and probably have no interest in wich pr0n pages you visit, other shady companies does.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They don't scan for personal information, so backengineering it wouldn't be to useful. If you want personal information it would be easier to hack a persons computer and just install a trojan and a keylogger. That Zonealarm and virus programs don't react on blizzards scanning is another proof that they don't collect personal information. And like somebody said pls post the link to blizzards statement in the first post.
Comments
Perhaps the argument isn't about "I have nothing to hide."
Maybe it's about "i shouldn't have to hide anything."
__________________________
"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
B. Blizzard Entertainment has the right to obtain certain identification information about your computer and its operating system, including the identification numbers of your hard drives, central processing unit, IP addresses and operating systems, for identification purposes without any further notice to you.
C. Blizzard Entertainment has the right to obtain "non-personal" data from your connection to World of Warcraft in order to make certain demographic assumptions regarding the users of World of Warcraft without any further notice to you.
D. In order to assist Blizzard Entertainment to police users who may use "hacks," or "cheats" to gain an advantage over other players, you acknowledge that Blizzard Entertainment shall have the right to obtain certain information from your computer and its component parts, including your computer's random access memory, video card, central processing unit, and storage devices. This information will only be used for the purpose of identifying "cheaters," and for no other reason.
this is all of what is said in the ToA about this subject. why would they need my id numbers, ip address, connection data, and i saw where they were searching history, temp files, cookies, etc. they do not need that info or even to scan it...i beleive they are selling the info to 3rd parties. i was thinking about buying this after playing the 14 day trial from pc gamer, but im definately not going to now.
I don't believe anyone is paying for info like that. Hell somebody who wants info like that, they just have to make a free pr0n site with info tracking and they would have more info gathered in 2 days than blizzard can supply them for a year. Or they just hack some credit card companies site and gather info from there, like that spammer that is in court in Usa now.
Master_Shake I respect your opinion and your preferences. But Like you said I'm more interested in quality than quantity. I had a really good review about Blizzard (They made excelent games, truly amazing games), but Blizz screw it. They only think about money, the support they give to the WoW is so horrible that I know at least 20-25 friends quited to play other games. Of course all the companys think about the money, but Blizz priority right now is only the money and that make me said about it. The lines of thoughts in Blizz are: Money -> Authority -> Espionage -> Market Interests -> Game Dev -> Fun in The Game -> Players Opinion.
Seems to be that there're other companys in the market that are more interested in players opinion/fun in the game then fcking money. Again, Blizz want to recover positive feedback ? Cut the fees, release quality expansions and good new content (charge for it), stop acting like they can do whatever they want (even if they can) and some humble atitude is welcome. Sorry about the offtopic.
About the topic: Again another atitude from Blizz that are screwing their image among players. There're other ways to combat hackers/cheaters than invading others privacy. In the begining Blizz were doing a pretty nice job for the 1º MMO game, but start to screw it with arrogant impositions. A said tale for Blizz. Enough about this
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm The Originator, You're The Imitator. I'm The Prototype, You're The Carbon Copy. I'm The REAL... You're The FAKE !
I understand why Blizzard deems this necessary to keep the game fair and safe for the masses but I do still have a concern after reading all the posts in this thread.
What happens if you buy the game and then do not agree to this or any part of the TOS?
Are you just out your $50??? How are you supposed to get your money back? Many stores only take back open game exchanges for the same title. I am pretty sure you could get it from Blizzard but who wants to go through all that trouble? Should sensitive TOS issues be printed on the outside of the box so you can see them before buying? I guarantee that game companies would absolutely CRINGE if they had to put something like "Playing Requires Computer Scanning" on the outside of the box!!!
After playing games for 25 years now I have only bought a couple of games that I had to get a refund for because of the TOS. One was a small 39MB downloadable game and I had no problem getting my money back. The other I bought at a store a long time ago and cannot remember what game it was but I never did get my money back.
My point is the TOS should be available before purchasing the game. That way you know what you are getting into. Then if you agree to those terms and click the "Accept" button you have no recourse on any TOS issues.
-------------------------------------------
Control is an illusion!
This is a great point, and one one of my friends brought up.
One of the posters, and I don't have the post on hand to quote it, claimed the following in particular -
*In the process of installing the game late Saturday, he was taken to the screen to activate his account and paid for 3 months in advance.
*Then he was taken to the patches.
*Finally, the ToS agreement.
*Being late, he overlooked the part about Blizzard having full access to your system to scan it and didn't discover it until Thursday.
*He did not like this, declined the ToS when he read it again, and cancelled his account.
Is he due a refund?
It seems the argument turned to whether or not the ToS could be called a 'contract', and recent evidence says that yes the ToS is a contract.
The player then went to consult an attorney who advised him that in his opinion - Blizzard Entertainment is in breach of contract, because they aren't allowed to force you to surrender your rights to use their product and this means the contract is illegal.
And secondly because the guy didn't understand what he was signing, he was therefore not competent enough in contractual law to be considered an active party to the contract.
Both of these problems creates a situation where for this guy the contract is null and void. If the contract doesn't exist, then Blizzard must refund his money becuse it's in the non-existent contract that states they will not.
I mean this is getting more and more interesting the more I hear about it hehe.
Oh yeah I forgot - because he activated his account before being taken to the ToS, he is supposedly crap out of luck because he paid before reading the terms of the contract.
But this is not a legal thing to do and is Blizzard's fault. So yeah, in this case this means that Blizzard is commiting fraud if they do not refund this guy's money.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
This is a great point, and one one of my friends brought up.
One of the posters, and I don't have the post on hand to quote it, claimed the following in particular -
*In the process of installing the game late Saturday, he was taken to the screen to activate his account and paid for 3 months in advance.
*Then he was taken to the patches.
*Finally, the ToS agreement.
*Being late, he overlooked the part about Blizzard having full access to your system to scan it and didn't discover it until Thursday.
*He did not like this, declined the ToS when he read it again, and cancelled his account.
Is he due a refund?
It seems the argument turned to whether or not the ToS could be called a 'contract', and recent evidence says that yes the ToS is a contract.
The player then went to consult an attorney who advised him that in his opinion - Blizzard Entertainment is in breach of contract, because they aren't allowed to force you to surrender your rights to use their product and this means the contract is illegal.
And secondly because the guy didn't understand what he was signing, he was therefore not competent enough in contractual law to be considered an active party to the contract.
Both of these problems creates a situation where for this guy the contract is null and void. If the contract doesn't exist, then Blizzard must refund his money becuse it's in the non-existent contract that states they will not.
I mean this is getting more and more interesting the more I hear about it hehe.
Oh yeah I forgot - because he activated his account before being taken to the ToS, he is supposedly crap out of luck because he paid before reading the terms of the contract.
But this is not a legal thing to do and is Blizzard's fault. So yeah, in this case this means that Blizzard is commiting fraud if they do not refund this guy's money.
In the manual wich all players have access to before they create account and even install a game it says:
that the game requires internet access and that you must accept blizzards terms. 2 places in the manual warn players about the terms of use. It is also printed on the outside of the package, that you have to accept the terms of use. You can read the whole Terms of Use in the Readme file or on the net. So I he wants to take legal actions against blizzard he won't have any luck.
taken from the readme:
You may view the Terms of Use by visiting the following website: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.shtml. If you do not agree with the Terms of Use, then (i) you should not register for an Account to play the Game, and (ii) you should contact Licensor's customer service at (800) 592-5499 to arrange to return the Game for a full refund of the purchase price within thirty (30) days of the original purchase. Once you accept the Terms of Use and register an Account, the purchase price of the Game will not be refunded to you if you choose not to continue the monthly subscription to the Service.
Gmworker is posting illegal stuff in several threads and should be banned.
I have a friend who showed me that box, and exactly where it's printed that you are required to agree to a EULA to play the game.
LOL I have 20/20 vision, and I could not read that! What kind of fonts are those, microscopic?
Personally, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking Blizzard is trying to get away with one huge scam.
I mean to say that, if we were talking about a game that affected some 30,000 players, like DAoc, that's one thing.
But on the scale of WoW??? 3.5 million players, the vast majority of which have no clue what they are agreeing to?
I THINK Blizzard has more to answer for than you suspect. For one thing, I know several people personally who on Friday sent all the necessary information to the government requesting an investigation into allegations of fraud, and violation of privacy.
Now, having a certain interest in this because I love MMOs, I reviewed the Star Wars Galaxies info, and they are claiming the right to sell your information, that is exactly what they are doing. But in online privacy litigation, this has rarely been considered an illagal act. Passively sending cookies to search personal info has I believe in only 2 cases in California been withheld by the courts for furtheer review, but I think in only one of those cases did the plaintiff win.
Blizzard, though, is demanding full access to your entire computer, for the purpose of actively scanning all your files and processses.
This has never been done, certainly not to that depth. I don't think the players understand what they have signed away by agreeing to those terms.
Because of this, and the fact that SOE attempted the same thing a couple years back and were delivered the smackdown by uncle sam for it, I think Blizzard is in for a rude awakening.
I mean, it's probably a matter of Blizzard just having no experience whatsoever in an MMO. I played this back near release. It was okay, i thought the game was great in comparison to some others. It's not perfect. Blizzard has a tendency to view the MMO as an RPG, and again I'm not surprised. They FORCE players into a box in which if they choose to apply tactical thinking to a given combat situation, they are termed 'exploiters' and banned from the game. The Players playing the game normally are experiencing what it's like to play an RPG, not an MMO. They aren't playing the way the developers intended them to.
This is terrible as far as MMO design philosophy. Limiting the players in everything they do removes much content from an MMO design.
But this just is more proof of Blizzard's lack of experience.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Oh, and honestly if I bothered to read the ToS at the time I was playing it, I would never have agreed to it either. I had no idea Blizz would try to pull this crap.
But luckly, as far as I know they weren't scanning systems at the time.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Well your 20/20 vision is bad then. I read without problems and found that text 5 seconds after that I checked my box to see if it said something about that. It's even placed there where you open the box.
And you shouldn't have any problems reading this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html
the whole thing is also handed to you while you create your account, and you have to accept it when you create the account.
I don't think any legal actions will lead to anything (Or I may never know, it's all fucked over there in the states). I'm sure Vinvendi and Blizzards lawyers have spent hundreds of hours making that document and I'm sure there are no loop holes. They make these kind of documents for each single game the make.
And If you ever have listened to what Blizzard says you would have known that Blizzard doesn't search your whole computer. The just look at proccesses related to Wow and through your Ram.
Sure, if they had proven themselves responsible and reliable in the past.
But take the time to find the legal cases surrounding Starcraft, and what occurred there.
Without their knowledge, they actually sold the players' information illegally, and were forced to pay for it.
What's to stop them from doing that again? Did they magically see the light, and would never do such a thing ever again?
You just CAN'T TRUST MANAGEMENT. And if you do, you're a fool for it. No offense to you personally Phoenixs.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
I don't trust all management, but I can't see why one of the 3-4 biggest game companies in the world
as I see it, correct me if I'm wrong:
1. EA Games
2. Ubisoft
3. Vivendi Universal Games <-- Owns Blizzard
should start with fraud/criminal activities? I mean they have all to loose on it, nothing to gain on it. The biggest companies are the ones that draw all the attention from the goverment. It's against the biggest companies goverments take actions and investigations. Not the ones with 20k customers or less.
And like I have said many times Wepps, they don't collect personal info, how should Blizzard be able to sell our personal info illegally when they don't have that info?
There's one flaw in your logic.
You're using logic to discuss company management
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
I think you're making a big deal out of nothing.
For starters, there is no legality issue. You are consenting to Blizzard scanning your hard drive (by agreeing to the Terms of Service). As someone posted a few pages back, it is similar to consenting a personal search in a concert. And the WoW client is trying its best to make you read the EULA like you should have.
According to Blizzard's representatives and ToS, none of your stored data or personal information is sent back, therefore there is no privacy threat. If you had evidence that your stored data or personal information is actually being sent to Blizzard then it would indeed be a breach of privacy, much like tracking cookies that are often found on porn sites that gather personal information. But from what has been said so far, the WoW client simply scans your hard drive but does not send any of your own data back. You're only speculating whether Blizzard will keep the agreement or not.
Currently playing:
* City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
Exactly what I'm trying to say.
According to that statement, then, Blizzard is scanning your files and processes.
But sending nothing back to them.
Erm, why scan in the first place then? This makes no sense to me.
If I'm a player, let's say, and they scan my hard drive. What are they looking for that they have no interest in retrieving?
/shrug
Sounds fishy to me.
edit - and if they are sending it back, then it can be intercepted because of the current encryption regulations. I have a friend who played sitting with me right now. He says that Blizzard was unable to stop a trojan virus from scanning your system and retrieving your password.
Well, if they can't secure THAT, then they can't secure ANYTHING. They are just opening the door for hackers to get direct access to you.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
When it finds something malicious it will tell blizzard: "hacks being used" etc, and then they will kick your client of the server.
Wait a minute.
Is WOW.exe running on the client or the server?
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
Wow.exe is the exe file of your client. It's running on your computer. With saying "kick your client of the server" I meant close the access to the server for your client.
Okay now I understand why they are saying it doesn't work then.
Anything running on your client can be prevented from searching the files where a cheat may exist. It can also be disabled or fooled with in any number of ways.
A hacker cannot access the Blizzard server-side software in any way (in the long assumption they know what they are doing).
He CAN access the client-side software though.
So, you are agreeing to allow Blizzard Spyware on your system, apparently for no other reason but for them to apply a procedure for identifying cheaters - that cheaters, and their 3rd party programmers, can disable anyway.
A really good team of developers can create checks and balances in the system on the server side, where a cheater could run their program but there is no way it would have an effect on their avatar or the environment. This is really the only true method of preventing these kinds of hacks, outside actually designing the game in such a manner as to nullify the reason to use those hacks in the first place.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
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http://www.legionofchaos.net
Yep blizzard is only scanning processes looking for known hacks. Said that back on page three. I speculate the only info taken is "wowhack.exe is operating...commencing shutdown....pwned." As far as not trusting them I gave them my credit card number. They could do so much with that than any other information i have on my computer. Take money, look into my buying habits, personal info.
Sure, but rules and regulations regarding the legalities of owning that account information are quite specific, and violations of these would likely shut down the company. The possibility of jail terms and heavy fines are a great motivator!
Rules regarding what constitutes privacy violations in the Internet arena are very weak, easily exploited.
Because I've taken interest in this subject, I've done some research regarding this issue in the last couple days. The results are enlightening. I recommend doing so yourselves.
Regardless of this, there is a line somewhere that can be crossed. Given what happened to SOE a couple years back regarding this exact same issue, I believe that Blizzard has crossed that line.
But I have no personal grudge or anything, I just believe that Blizzard is violating the law on this issue. I think game development personnel everywhere are glued to their monitors waiting to see the result of this. It determines the limit to which a company can go with their online service concerning privacy.
For these people it might just be more important to them than to you as players. On the other hand, maybe it is a major issue for the players. That remains to be seen.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
The problem as I see it is not that Blizz does this, because I can kinda undersand that, allthough they should have been more upfront about it, all this cloak and dagger feeds the Conspi-crowd.
The real problem is probably that wow.exe or whatever file runs that scan does so freely, neither my zone labs or kaspersky raised an eyebrow, and even if they did when I see wow.exe I just click "remember" and "allow".
It does not seem all that difficult to backgineer that and get access to whatever info blizz is scanning for, even though blizz will never recieive it and probably have no interest in wich pr0n pages you visit, other shady companies does.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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They don't scan for personal information, so backengineering it wouldn't be to useful. If you want personal information it would be easier to hack a persons computer and just install a trojan and a keylogger.
That Zonealarm and virus programs don't react on blizzards scanning is another proof that they don't collect personal information.
And like somebody said pls post the link to blizzards statement in the first post.