Name change feature on account is obtuse for no reason

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1

I recently had to change my name on battle.net since I got it changed legally. In order to do this process I had to submit personal information that I believed in excess to my privacy.

The official information I was given by my support agent was that:
"bring to your attention that changing the name and espicially the last name on your Battle.net account to a different one has a process like this, to prevent hackers (in case an account was hacked), trading or selling an account or other similar scenarios. "

I would suggest people use systems like 2fa and others factors for verification that dont require sending legal documents. If I can give a vpn the bare minimum of information to buy a subscription and they are able to stay afloat, I don’t see why I would need to tell intimate details of my life to a video game publisher. The level of privacy I have to go into for changing information on here is indeed more than some government or financial institutions.

I understand that reasons given for this is like botting or rmt issues or wtv else. The problem is those things will already exist regardless of security measures taken. The systemic issue of gameplay being affected by in game economy is trying to be solved outside of the game, on the entire service.

So what you have is measures to combat rmt contributing to less privacy for the entire userbase of battlenet. The system as it currently is, encourages people to just make new accounts to not deal with the headache of changing info to their current accounts (something I’ve done for square enix’s ff14).

Please look into this because its also an anti-trans policy in addition to a flawed privacy policy.

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The first name on the account can be changed at will by yourself in Account management. It is the last name they require documentation for. Not for botting, or anything cheating related. It is to protect the account holder from theft. That is the main reason they do it. Also consider, that you are signing a contract when you agree to the EULA with your account name/password. Contract law tends to like to have legal names on accounts.

You can set up your Bnet account any way you want as well, although it requires a legal name. People don’t always do that though and nothing stops them. It is not the set up that matters in this case, it is the change. Blizzard is very determined to keep accounts from changing hands so they won’t give your account away by putting a new name on it without PROOF that the name legally changed. Marriage documents, court documents, etc.

Most accounts and documents that require your legal name also require proof of legal name change, esp the last name. Blizzard also requires proof of residence if you need to change the Country on your account.

Now, your character names and Bnet name online you can make whatever you want (within the game rules) with the paid services.