In part 4 of the new privacy rules, Blizzard specifically states that on some forums the player’s real first and last name will be published.
For certain forums, anyone posting or replying to a post may be doing so using their Real ID – that is, their full first and last name
In July 2010, Blizzard did a similar thing, requiring real name on all forums and I along with many other people purged their accounts for personal safety, professional, and many other reasons.
Some of this history is (sort of) linked here.
Why do I have an account now, since I destroyed my original you might ask? Well I have this one because a friend bought it and gave it to me. They wanted me to play again.
This is dangerous because it violates basic privacy tenets. And everyone has heard about the man who was killed because a person got angry over a game.
Blizzard, for the love of all that is holy, please stop this. I don’t want people to die or lose their jobs because they PVP or otherwise piss off a random other player. You did this before and it failed massively.
It does allow you to chat with friends cross-faction, or at least it used to do so. But most people turn it off anyway, because of privacy concerns or paranoia.
What an epic disaster that was. I remember a bunch of us posting our real names deliberately to show the devs what a horrible idea it was. Hard to believe they’ve forgotten that lesson and are thinking about trying it again.
Is this actually a new privacy policy or an update to the original privacy policy? Because Blizzard saying “some forums may use blah blah” sounds like language from the original privacy policy when RealID was pushed a decade ago, and not necessarily proof that they’re thinking of doing this again.
For certain forums, anyone posting or replying to a post may be doing so using their Real ID – that is, their full first and last name – with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character (see discussion regarding Real ID below).
The wording implies that this is optional.
Edit: We also don’t know what “certain forums” are.
The end of part 4 has the part about real names on some forums. Says to go to Real ID section which only says there is control of your real name going to your friends within Real ID. Does not say anything about having your real name on some forums as per part 4.
