I bought D3V and D3ROS at Best Buy. They do not have my credit card number, nor with they ever. They have an e-mail address for me and that is it. The e-mails account is a burner account I have for things like this. When I actually need to check it, it is full of spam top to bottom. You may be fine with having your personal information in multitudes of databases, but a lot of people aren’t. This is over kill and an invasion of privacy.
Certain businesses like credit card companies, and banks need your personal information because they are loaning you money. The last thing I would want is a breach in Blizz’s security, then spend years fixing my credit because someone got too much of my personal information from a video game company.
The fix is to ban the cheaters with regular ban waves. If they buy a new account, so what, ban them again, and again, and again. Eventually, they will get tired of it and move onto something easier.
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Did you read what I wrote? I’m gonna write it again.
Let’s say I get banned for botting with my real life ID. I can just tell any of my friends to start a D3 account for me with their ID. And I’m up and running with my bot again.
And think of people being to sell verified accounts on top of that…
Last thing I don’t think it’s legal to force someone to show ID here to play a game without money (I’m not in USA). They need the police at their side.
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First to Icamp, Man you can use your friends identities if they’re cool with it, but you’ll still run out of friends willing to let you do that sooner or later, same with selling. Still both of these work-arounds are better solved by the more wholistic proposal that includes intercompany collaboration. This proposal would make the loss of verified status in one game cause it to be lost across all games, vastly reducing the load on every participating company’s hack team.
To Icamp’s final point and to you alexismad, this is an optional system. If you can’t or won’t trust a company with whatever minimum amount of information they require to verify who you are for this purpose, then don’t. It’s totally up to you. Unverified players can keep playing games just as they are now. It’s optional and no law is being broken so there is no real legal concern Icamp.
Alexismad, Your ban after ban fix is the right and moral thing for these companies to do. They should spend what they have to in order to bury botting, cheating, and trolling and provide a quality product to their loyal customers. The problem is that they’ve shown they simply won’t. They don’t have the moral fortitude to accept a smaller bottom line. Companies are run by boards of executives rather than single individuals by design. This allows them to operate more successfully, from a monetary standpoint, because such boards are incapable of growing a conscience. As the ban wave frequency goes up, the number of botters caught goes down, and the extra revenue falls off until the ban wave doesn’t pay for itself. This is all that matters to them.
We have to furnish the gaming companies with both a means and a reason to end cheating that respects their nature. They aren’t going to wake up one day after 25 years and decide to do the right thing. The ban wave is also limited to some games and a totally ongoing solution. Verification has the potential to work across all games, and will steadily take less and less effort to implement.
We have to change our approach to this issue, even if it’s not in the ways I’ve outlined for the community. I hope we can at least agree that how we’ve been fighting cheating hasn’t brought us any closer to cheat free online gaming since it began. This battle can’t be won decisively in a script to script manner. We need a change in policy.
You don’t understand or maybe I wasn’t clear. It is not legal to keep register of personal info. There are some exceptions where law requires register. Diablo is not law. So they will not be allowed to keep personal info register.
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I’m not sure where you’re from Icamp, but I’ve never heard of such a law. Even a grocery store can keep records of people who bunce checks so they can be refused service, and any bar can ask to see your ID. In the case that there actually is a legal concern in some country, players in that country won’t be able to participate until a solution is found. That will be a job for people versed in that country’s laws and that’s not me.
it’d be sad but no different than not being able to gamble online. Players in that country would have to find their own creative solution or lobby to change their laws just like anything else. They’d also still be able to play unverified just as they do right now.
I can tell you this. I used to work at hotell. We had frequent guests passport number, billing address on file so they don’t have to stand in queue to register. After the personal data law we had to delete everything. Personal ID number can not be stored. As I said there are exceptions like government agencies, hospitals and stuff. A game company will not be allowed to collect and store personal data as ID.
That’s really interesting. Do you mind if I ask what country?
I’m in Sweden. Damn it hade to write 20 letters.
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https://www.gov.uk/data-protection
Everyone responsible for using personal data has to follow strict rules called ‘data protection principles’. They must make sure the information is:
• used fairly, lawfully and transparently
• used for specified, explicit purposes
• used in a way that is adequate, relevant and limited to only what is necessary
• accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date
• kept for no longer than is necessary
• handled in a way that ensures appropriate security, including protection against unlawful or unauthorised processing, access, loss, destruction or damage
Pay attention to that last one, and remember all the stories you’ve ever read about games companies having their customer databases hacked.
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Aah so this law is maybe a European union thing.
Doesn’t that cover just about every democratic and free countries?
And cody want’s a dictatorial system where they say papers please and if you don’t you get shot
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Thank you for going the extra mile and bringing this to the conversation meteorblade. This policy should make those of you, in the EU at least, feel even better about this idea. This policy states that if a company wants to use personal information that they have to do so within certain guidelines, but not that they simply cannot due to some status, like being a government agency. It’s perfect policy in that it’s an example of a government forcing businesses to have a conscience when they otherwise would not.
As general policy this is one step shy of legal precedent which still might be a problem. Much like the policy that “all reasonable adaptations for disabled employees must be made” didn’t include large print ticket printers in restaurants for low vision employees until the ACLU sued to have them established as fitting the definition of ‘reasonable adaptation’. A similar ruling would have to be made against gaming companies using this info for our ‘explicit purpose’ of verification for it to be an issue. Likewise the security measures they’re forced to use will be a matter of establishing, through precedent, what such measures satisfy the conditions of the final bullet point.
Both from a security standpoint and a legal one there are great arguments to be made for coming at this problem collaboratively. Perhaps the creation of an Equifax like organization to oversee verification across gaming would be a better solution than letting companies work more independently. I’ve argued from the beginning that to solve a problem that exists in all games we need a solution for all games. Companies working together is usually accomplished by the creation of a central agency they all work with rather than all of the companies trying to work with every other company. For obvious reasons a centralized source for collaboration is more effective.
Great addition meteorblade, security certainly seems to be a large issue for the opponents to this idea. This is a great example of how the protections surrounding personal information are getting stronger. This law will help keep not just gaming companies but all companies accountable.
I’m don’t think Activision want to risk 20 million euro or x% of their world wide earnings in penalty fee just to stop botters in D3. I think x=4 in this case.
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Well that’s exactly the point. As current holders of some of this information they’re already exposed to a potential fine if they suffer a data breach on what they already have, if it can be found that they’ve not satisfied the conditions in the final bullet point. This law is designed to make them, and others like target, more diligent about security.
I don’t think I fully understood what you mean. But there are allways the choice to not ask for information that can lead to huge penalty fees. What information do they currently hold? A burner email address and some made up info about me? That info is not covered by personal info law.
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You know why some guys puts socks on their croch?
yeah same reason…
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The info they already have Icamp is credit card and billing info. Yes some people find ways not to give them that info, but many people do and would have to if they wanted to opt to make a verified account. I’m just saying that they’re already exposed to a suit if they don’t properly protect what they have, and offering verification won’t change that.
This law is intended to provide a basis for a negligence claim against companies that don’t properly secure their data, and who thereby abuse the public’s trust. It is not intended to restrict companies from using it for a legitimate, explicit purpose.
Credit card info is not covered by personal info law. Adress is public information. Personal ID number is covered by personal info law. Please understand personal ID number are a huge deal in Europe.
I’m sure activation will not risk huge penalty fees just to try to stop botters in D3 by storing personal information covered by EU wide law.
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They won’t have to. Only an amount of information sufficient to link a verified account to a single individual would be necessary. EU personal ID numbers and USA social security numbers will not be necessary. I did originally, back in the ban wave thread, float this idea but misscheetah pointed out that it’s really more than is needed and I agree. A credit card should be just fine.
I’m curious what you think of the idea outside of your security concerns. I’d like to know what you and others think about the merit of going after cheating in a new way, even if it’s not my way. What do all of you out there think about the idea, that the way we’ve tried to deal with this problem hasn’t worked.
Certainly I’m going to express the virtues of my solution but this is about discussing the problem as a community and coming up with better solutions. Ones that haven’t failed us for 25 years. Doing things the way we have is simply going to continue to not work.
I’ve talked a lot here and elsewhere about how verification can solve the problems of cheating, botting, and trolling in all games, but if not verification then what and why? Those of you out there reading and not posting, this forum needs you and your ideas. Don’t let every thread be run by the same handful of people. Besides it’s fun 
I don’t understand how you gonna verify with just credit card number. I currently have 3. I can cancel any of them to get new one with different number. And it’s not about my security concern. It’s about it will be stupid by activation to risk huge penalty fees over try to stop botters in D3. 4% of Activision global sales. This can’t be a small sum of money. Risk/reward don’t add up here.
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