Are you pissed, feeling a bit helpless since they done-f'ked you with their banhammer up your arse? FIGHT BACK... and demand proof and while you're at it demand that they delete the proof you botted (at least if you are in the EU you can). Under the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (Google it) you can request the proof that Blizz have on you. Its a nice f'k you move back to Blizz... at the very least it will give you something to do instead of botting. GL!
Here's what you do: Login to battle.net and create a support ticket saying something like: "To whom it may concern, I am exercising my right to check if data held about my World of Warcraft account is correct and whether it is being handled in accordance with wider data protection rules. Subject access rights in Europe are defined by the EC Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) and have been ratified into the laws of my EU member country. I expect acknowledgement of this request within 48 hours and for all information held by Blizzard Entertainment and associated companies to be forwarded to my physical or email address in a timely fashion." They will have to do this, if not they face big fines. Also it may lead to the ability to dispute their claims for the ban.
I had a PM from an Australian asking if something similar is in Australia. I did some digging and yes it seems that Australia has the Privacy Act 1988 (The Privacy Act| Office of the Australian Information Commissioner - OAIC) which, upon reading the Australian Privacy Principles (Privacy fact sheet 17: Australian Privacy Principles| Office of the Australian Information Commissioner - OAIC) seems to offer similar rights and provisions. If you live in Australia I would encourage you to make the request for information. Best of luck.
I'm getting lots of PMs about this thread, many of which are "does my country have these sorts of laws?" and "what can I expect if I make this request and what can I do after?" Here's what I think so far: 1. USA Americans have a tricky time requesting data held on them - In the USA there is both Federal and State laws... from what I can tell there is no Federal law that is similar to the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. The Obama Administration tried to put in strong privacy laws in a "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights" which looks to have been shot down and won't make it into law. Having said that if you are under the age of 13, or are a parent of a minor under 13, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) - 15 U.S. Code section 6501 requires that operators of online services (read Blizzard) provide notice and get verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13. I doubt this has happened so if this situation applies to you then it looks like Blizzard has broken the law. The important thing to know is that not only must a parent be verified to give consent to the collection of information, under Section 5 there must not be any deception around the collection of information. This may apply to the ban as information collected about playing the game may have been collected deceptively; which means that Blizzard may have broken the law when it did not disclose the collection of information clearly or prominently. The FTC would be responsible for enforcement and I would imagine that is where you will need to make your complaint. For more info on COPPA see COPPA - Children's Online Privacy Protection. As for State law well that gets tricky and I'm not going to spend time going over all 50 States but if you live in California it seems like they have extremely tight online privacy laws. For example, California Business and Professions Code section 22947 prohibits an unauthorized person from knowingly installing or providing software that performs certain functions, such as collecting personally identifiable information, on or to another user's computer located in California. Interestingly enough it looks like Blizzard wouldn't be able to count on being an 'authorized person' with the EULA as per 22947.1.b, "An “authorized user” does not include a person or entity that has obtained authorization to use the computer solely through the use of an end user license agreement." This means to me that Blizzard broke the law, but then again seek a legal opinion. California also has Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 - California Business and Professions Code sections 22575-22579. This is quite an interesting bit of law which allows you to request the information Blizzard used to ban you. From the statue, "If the operator maintains a process for an individual consumer who uses or visits its commercial Web site or online service to review and request changes to any of his or her personally identifiable information that is collected through the Web site or online service, provide a description of that process." An excellent resource about California privacy law can be found here: https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/privacy-laws. 2. EU It looks like most EU member countries have ratified the directive. In particular: Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden The Netherlands United Kingdom To find out more about your particular country's law look it up here: Status of implementation of Directive 95/46 on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data - Justice 3. What should I do? Follow my instructions above about creating a ticket requesting your information but customise it to your country's law(s) and obviously don't just cut and paste it, edit it a little in your own words or it's obvious where it came from. 4. What can I expect? The short answer is I don't know at this point... but in order to fight the ban: A) You need to know exactly why they banned you, and B) You need to know exactly how they banned you. Why is this important: There is a lot of speculation on the forums why accounts were banned but the only thing that matters is how it relates to your particular account. Maybe the evidence they have is flimsy... or not investigated well, which would mean you can argue their evidence against them to have your account reinstated. Again there is a lot of speculation as to how accounts have been banned. At this point I don't think even the HB team know. How Blizzard went about it could have ramifications because if they didn't go about it in the right way they may have broken your country's privacy law(s). Now if the case against your account is dead to rights and Blizzard have not broken any privacy laws then there really isn't anything you can do. However, if the evidence is shaky, or they haven't gone about it in the proper way, well then there might be a possibility to get your account reinstated. To me the real question is, "Was my privacy violated when collecting information about my account to ban me?" My final say on this is don't expect people to do this for you, take action yourself... I personally feel like my privacy has been violated because Blizzard would have had to been spying on my account in order to ban it. A major principle of law is that you cannot contract out of law... or put another way, Blizzard's EULA does not give them the right to break your privacy rights afforded by the law(s) in your own country. If you really don't care for your privacy, or your account for that matter, then this course of action isn't for you.
