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What blizzard is doing while you play WoW
codenam47
Member UncommonPosts: 30
Hey all,
i stumbled across a neat little article which may be true/false, not 100% sure but its worth a look.
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2006-11-26/20061126193343858.shtml
Suposdly Blizzard is scanning your browsing history and cookies as you play the game....legal? I know in the EULA it says they can scan your Ram and CPU but nothing about browser history and cookies.
Its the fact they could be selling this information to advertising agencies or collecting personal information a bit alarming.
I dont really see how this is protecting the game or finding cheaters, just because someone clicked a link from say thottbot (which is spammed gold farming sites) dosnt mean they buy from them.
As i said, not sure if its 100% true but its worth a look. Probably another good reason to use Firefox over IE ^_^
i stumbled across a neat little article which may be true/false, not 100% sure but its worth a look.
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2006-11-26/20061126193343858.shtml
Suposdly Blizzard is scanning your browsing history and cookies as you play the game....legal? I know in the EULA it says they can scan your Ram and CPU but nothing about browser history and cookies.
Its the fact they could be selling this information to advertising agencies or collecting personal information a bit alarming.
I dont really see how this is protecting the game or finding cheaters, just because someone clicked a link from say thottbot (which is spammed gold farming sites) dosnt mean they buy from them.
As i said, not sure if its 100% true but its worth a look. Probably another good reason to use Firefox over IE ^_^
Comments
Thats my opinion.
Even though someone posted that it isn't an invasion of privacy since a machine doesn't understand what is in there even though it scans it, it is none of their business. Glad I'm not playing WoW anymore.
- Tassu
"Lick My Weapons"
http://www.rootkit.com/blog.php?newsid=358
http://www.rootkit.com/newsread.php?newsid=371
The day I see some proof instead of a bunch of half-arsed conspiracy ideas,
I'll care.
Same goes for you bigfoot!
Played so far: 9Dragons, AO, AC, AC2, CoX, DAoC, DF, DnL, DR, DDO, Ent, EvE, EQ, EQ2, FoMK, FFO, Fury, GW, HG:L, HZ, L1, L2, M59, MU, NC1, NC2, PS, PT, R:O, RF:O, RYL, Ryzom, SL, SB, SW:G, TR, TCoS, MX:O, UO, VG, WAR, WoW...
It all sucked.
Found these web sites on google. It looks like they were already sued over this, but they have altered their methods with Warden.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980430S0015
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9805/04/privacy_piracy/
I'd call that proof.
.
________________________________
I'm floating down a river
Oars freed from their homes long ago
Lying face up on the floor
Of my vessel
I marvel at the stars
And feel my heart overflow
Last time I checked the fundamental idea of a working lawsystem is that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise,
and those two links just state that they're being sued.
Not sentenced.
Played so far: 9Dragons, AO, AC, AC2, CoX, DAoC, DF, DnL, DR, DDO, Ent, EvE, EQ, EQ2, FoMK, FFO, Fury, GW, HG:L, HZ, L1, L2, M59, MU, NC1, NC2, PS, PT, R:O, RF:O, RYL, Ryzom, SL, SB, SW:G, TR, TCoS, MX:O, UO, VG, WAR, WoW...
It all sucked.
Last time I checked the fundamental idea of a working lawsystem is that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise,
and those two links just state that they're being sued.
Not sentenced.
The fact remains that they did it and admitted to it. As for it being legal, a court needs to decide. How far will people let these privacy issues go on, I wonder.
They admitted using anti-piracy software..
Nothing else.
And as per usual, Blizzard didn't save any information back then either..
And as for privacy,
you never had any anyways so how is this different?
Played so far: 9Dragons, AO, AC, AC2, CoX, DAoC, DF, DnL, DR, DDO, Ent, EvE, EQ, EQ2, FoMK, FFO, Fury, GW, HG:L, HZ, L1, L2, M59, MU, NC1, NC2, PS, PT, R:O, RF:O, RYL, Ryzom, SL, SB, SW:G, TR, TCoS, MX:O, UO, VG, WAR, WoW...
It all sucked.
P
a
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a
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does the fact that I play on a Mac OS make it any harder for them to do that sort of stuff?
Mostly so they can catch cheaters or people using bots, but not looking through personal information.
Groovy.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Ok, I'm going to explain this to all of you people who are all upset about having your PC scanned.
You give them permission to scan active processes when you click on the "I Agree" button.
And before all of you amateur lawyers start popping in...
No, it's not illegal in the slightest. There is absolutely nothing illegal about a person consciously giving permission to a company/service to scan their computer.
You're not "forced" to do it. You can, at any time, uninstall World of Warcraft. And no, you don't have the "right" to play Blizzard's game, and not abide by Blizzard's rules.
Not reading the EULA is not a valid defense. Blizzard has done everything within it's power to make it's Terms of Service available for your review. Whether you choose to review them or not is not Blizzard's problem...they've met their legal obligation.
No, you don't have a "right to privacy", because you agreed to give it up. And yes, you're fully entitled to give up your right to privacy, in the exact same way you can give up that right to remain silent when you get arrested.
Now, for the more technical arguments...
That article shows what's being scanned with several applications (including Media Player) open. Warden does indeed scan ALL active processes, because there's no way for it to scan some and not scan others. Media Player does indeed open up cookies, history, etc. If you don't want that stuff scanned, make sure it's not running when you launch WoW.
And the one key, very important thing that most people who whine about this seem to ignore is this...
Blizzard already has your credit card info, name, and address. If Blizzard REALLY wanted to screw its 6 million subscribers over, it already has all the info it needs to do it.