Violation of Security/Privacy...

Wed Oct 12 14:02:15 PDT 2005

Quoting Alan Horn (ahorn at deorth.org):

> There *are* privacy issues associated with this. I have absolutely no idea 
> what Blizzard does with any data they receive, and I haven't seen any 
> references online to exactly what they're looking for, other than the 
> EULA. 

This will sound a _little_ like the "well-poisoning" fallacy, but:

The reason I haven't yet bothered looking into the merits of the two
articles posted is that I'd already mentally consigned Blizzard and
Battle.net to the outer darkness a couple of years ago, because of their
(IMVAO) extremely scummy DMCA lawsuit against the open-source bnetd
developers:  http://lwn.net/Articles/105200/

I'm sure the issues raised are worth looking into, but given limited
personal time and resources, sometimes one is best advised to cut to the
chase and say "Wild horses wouldn't drag me into a business relationship
with these low-lives."  Ergo, whether a particular current setup they
have is objectionable or not becomes, from that perspective, a bit
academic.

> Other than voting with ones feet, there is little to be done to bring 
> accountability here.

Irony:  The bnetd developers (cited above) _were_ trying to vote with
their feet, and used none of what any sensible person would consider any
sort of Blizzard-copyright-encumbered property.  Yet, they've been
vindictively dragged through the courts by Blizzard, anyway.

Wild horses, I say -- and I'm glad to let others know, too.