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Privacy & Data

Gamers Triumph: Blizzard Rolls Back Real Name Mandate

Today Blizzard rolled back its plans to strip users of their privacy when posting comments on its popular online forums for its World of Warcraft and Starcraft II games. As Blizzard states in their post:

…when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.

Once again we seen how a motivated group of users can take back their privacy by using the power of the Internet to share a common concern, amplify the message and demand corporate action.  Likewise, we've seen a company listen to user criticism by acting quickly and responsibly in a way that builds trust and restores privacy to that community.

Just two days ago, we had called for this exact action, citing the importance of allowing pseudonyms to be integrated with Blizzard's new identity system:

Allowing players to use pseudonyms with Real ID accounts could solve this problem easily… [p]layers signed on to the forums with the expectation that their legal identities would be kept anonymous.

It's great to see a company so responsive and living up to its own mission statement, in which Blizzard vows to "listen, be respectful of other opinions, and embrace criticism as just another avenue for great ideas."