Blizzard Real id Forum Changes

A Blizzard Entertainment announcement lead to 5000 posts in under 6 hours about Blizzard's new public web forum policy, which once turned on will force posters to display their REAL NAME.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=1

While current privacy policy prevents actual person data to be displayed via the forums, now it will be forced.

Dear Blizzard,

We, your millions of loyal followers, have had enough.

This new public web policy violates your customers in a new, grotesque way. By forcing paying, subscribing customers to use their real names to post in the forums you are opening us up to a greater level of privacy vulnerability.

Account security is already a major concern without our characters real names being provided for public viewing. You can purchase background checking accounts that grant you unlimited background checks that provide you with information such as:

- Complete Current Address
- All Previous Addresses
- Phone Number
- Emails
- Relatives (mothers maiden name)
- Birth Day (include place of birth)

This is all the ammunition scammers need to scam an account.

First, we were given the option to add an authenticator to our account, but now we find accounts with unauthorized authenticators. This leads to 5 day queue times for emails, creating trial accounts try attempt to get web support, hour long phone hold times IF it doesn't boot you out from the start.

The level of customer service is already horrible. Any more services you force upon us, especially those which gives our your private information, will cause these customer service waiting periods to increase more than necessary.

If and when this change goes live, many respectable players will be forced to cancel accounts. Many of your loyal customers have careers that could be jeopardized by releasing real life information to current and future employers, college acceptance boards & others.

God forbid this information was used in a malicious manner to stalk, harass, or physically harm other players based on disagreements via an online forum.

Blizzard, we pay you for access to a fantasy role playing game. We pay you to keep our subscriber information private and confidential. We pay you to listen to our wants and needs and help make this a better game and safer community.

We urge you to rethink this upcoming change.

Concerned,