Fighting Back: Privacy issues arising from the ban

If you're willing to put in the time to write a letter to the government, go ahead. Just don't expect to get any useful information or a ban reversal.

Hey, I could be wrong, but if I can make a case like this, imagine what their legal team can do.

 

Thanks. Was trying to be bare bones about it.

 

You dodged to get the essence of this topic?

Anything Blizzard do store in their servers under your account, excluding your ingame account data, is or could be Personally identifiable information - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

So if they have scanned anything outside Blizzard's software namespace (Which is their own) in your computer, they are obliged to store it under your account.

That is what the people were after in this thread.

 

Anything they store is not your personal information.

As I said, this only applies to information about you. It only applies to them having information that identifies you. Your account is a separate entity. They can gather all the information they want, remove any trace that it has to do with you, and still take action against the account because their terms state that you are responsible for the account no matter who or what plays it. The only personal information they store is the information you need to give to register the account. Scanning your computer for traces of botting and linking it to an account is not breaching your privacy because your personal information is not compromised. The processes running on your computer are not your personal information because in no way does it identify you.

 

Is there an mail adress for the german legal department of blizzard?

Gibt es eine email für die Rechtsabteilung von Blizzard?

 

Yea, the above only proves, how some persons on the forum reject to comprehend the fundamentals of civil law and the invasion of privacy. I am out of the discussion.

P.S. Share the above to any civil rights attorney and wait for the rage

 

Ignorance is bliss (or in this case blizz!). If noone bothered with such things, you can be pretty sure that you as a consumer would be screwed all over the place. It doesn't matter that it's only a video game. It's a matter of principle and as a responsible citizen, you pursue your legal rights out of principle to set example. Next time it's something worse.

 

The world is full of ignorant and submissive people like that. That's why corporates are trying their luck every single day, and succeed.

The Yolo generation doesn't even know they have rights, because daddy used to fix their problems.

 

This is how they win. They know 2 things, 1, we will fight amongst each other trying to shoot the other down and when that does not work their legal team will clean up the rest. I am of the opinion that:
1) Any information they store about you and your account you have a right to.
2) If cash exchanges hands YOU have a right to answers and they CAN NOT SIMPLY SAY YOU ARE AT FAULT.

The problem in all of this is this. Even though they are compelled by law they would much rather fight you in court to get the information than give it to you. They are of the opinion you will not spend 1,000's to get $90 worth of info. To them the value is much higher because it reveals how the detection took place and as such we can use this information in one of two ways. 1) We could use it to solve the detection and they most certainly do not want that and 2) We could find that they stepped outside the law to acquire this data and have a valid case for a suit that all botters who lost their account could jump on, again they do not want that.

So even if we win we lose. And that's the game.

 

http://www.armaedfoundation.org/pdfs/Requirements_for_Personal_Information_US_States.pdf
found this documenting specific privacy laws from US states

 

Did someone get successfully UNBANNED ? you talk too much shiat about laws no one takes care off

 

Honestly, the thing is, most people here would rather accept the ban from Blizzard than to buck the system that is in place no matter if Blizzard broke the law in their attempt to detect Honorbuddy because they lost their lawsuit.

I would love to see articles questioning Blizzard's possible legality about detecting the bots in the news media outlets which are all reporting how Blizzard took a hard stand in banning all of the 100k+ cheaters of the game. If this truly is the case and Bossland can determine that Blizzard did utilize information outside the game environment to determine this, then he may have a case to sue Blizzard. Just saying...

 

Got a letter in the post today, acknowledgement of my request, informing me it will be followed up with in 7 working days.

 

I repeat, they did not take any personal information, therefore they did not breach any personal information laws.

The one who doesn't understand the fundamentals of civil law is you. All of this is to request personal information, and by the legal definitions of personal information, the processes scanned on your computer that were potentially used to determine whether whoever was controlling the account was botting are not considered to be personal information. Therefore, you are not able to request the information that you seek.

From the OP:

Note the heavy use of the phrase personal information then look up the legal definition of personal information. Sure, you can request it, but you are only going to get the information that is legally considered personal information. It's not a catch-all term for every single fact they gathered about you.

 

Dude. You are full of shit. You have the right to have all information they have stored about you handed over, without limitations. You are mixing two issues.

You have the right to know HOW they store and and handle personal/id information or any information that can be linked to such information, but it doesn't limit your right to receive everything they have stored on/about you. If they have information that indicates you have broken the EULA, they will have to hand that over as well. If they do not hand that over, you have not broken the EULA from an objective point of view, because no such information exist. In that case they would have to either give up their case, or go forward and face massive fines for breaking the law. As long as money is exchanged for a service, it's a fundamental right to receive due documentation and evidence if the other party claim you are in breach of contract.

(In before IT"S IN THE EULA, BLIZZARD SAYS IT!)

What purpose would it have to request that Blizzard provides you with your name and email address? Do you think they are some backup company in case you suffer acute amnesia?

What is it you're trying to achieve? Give people bad legal advice, or are you trying to convince people to not exercise their legal rights vs. Blizzard? I don't understand your motivation.

 

My motivation? I hate people spreading false information. I hate people giving false hope. That's all this is.

You've given consent for them to scan your computer. Within the law, they are able to scan your computer. If you didn't give them consent, they wouldn't be able to scan. This applies to US law and EU law.

Under legal definition of personal data, the information they scanned to check if bots were running is not considered personal data or personal information. This is the LEGAL definition. If the information you request is not covered by what is known as personal data, you cannot request it. That is the LAW in the US and the EU. The information they scanned for is NOT about you, therefore you cannot ask for it.

 

Here your logic have lost!

Anything but the Namespace, dedicated to Blizzard, in RAM, Hard drive and Windows Registry is personal information, from Blizzard's point of view. So it is Your Right, as Customer to insist and verify how this private information is stored and handled by Blizzard. The other concerns about that private informations are already answered by Darkdog72 above.

Just like your home is private territory, your private computer's HDD/RAM is private territory too. And even after you have generally allowed Blizzard to scan it with the EULA, they cannot scan outside their dedicated "territory" and cannot obtain certain facts, which could incriminate you.

It is just like you allow the Police to intrude you home 24/7 in the future, to the eternity, in case they decide to check your home for evidences if they suspect you for something....it is not even silly

 

You gave them valid consent to scan your computer. Everything they will scan on your computer is defined in the terms that you agreed to.

 

They banned 100k accounts because they are feeling the pressure from the community to show some caring about their game. Just the banning alone shows that they are feeling the general attitude towards their game that could be or will affect revenue in the future. Even if none of these appeals do anything they are still feeling the sway of popular opinion. You want to help your cause? Make botting less important problem by going to the wow forums and reminding people of real concerns. Shift their concerns back to bigger problems and botting will look like a smaller victory and less of a concern in the future. The way they handled their banwave is about politics and weighted risk vs reward. Reward outweighed the risk because of present and future abilty to draw upon this event as a history of customer satification. You can limit this and make botting a very small concern in the future by manipulating their focus.

God damn auto-correct

 

Unless i'm stupid can someone tell me how having the information they gathered about you can get you unbanned ?