– When my husband bought my ticket this morning on my behalf, he said he saw nowhere to enter my character’s name for the badge. How do I set up my badge to read my character’s name instead of my real name?
– What is the alternative to downloading the AXS app? It’s spyware through and through and I don’t want it on my phone. While I could download it the night before the con and delete it the instant I get my badge in my hand, I don’t want anything to do with it at all.
I need to add I’m fine with using an app of some kind to display my ticket… but NOT fine with giving access to every iota of my personal data and information (as well as my current location and the ability to operate my phone without my knowledge) to an unknown (at least, to me) third party just so I can attend a convention. This AXS app is beyond ridiculously sketchy and asking for FAR FAR MORE than anyone can argue is needed to display a ticket barcode. VERY DISAPPOINTED.
EDIT: From talking to AXS’s live chat support, they indicate that the ticket is linked to my credit card and the app is not necessary. I want to confirm that is actually the case before showing up, however.
You’ll Need the AXS Mobile App to Get Into the Show
To pick up your badge at registration this year, you’ll need to download the AXS Mobile App. The app displays a QR code (one code for all of your tickets), which changes at regular intervals to help guard against dupes and fraud. Because of that, we won’t be able to accept paper tickets, confirmation emails, or screenshots/photos of the QR code at BlizzCon registration.
After you buy your tickets, you should receive an email from AXS with instructions on how to download the app, or you can download it at any time for iPhone and Android.
If for some reason you find yourself at the show with a dead mobile device or some other unexpected issue preventing you from accessing the app, don’t worry. Just head to the Solutions Desk at registration and they’ll help you out.
edit: i see the thread in general about it now. it sounds like the company in general might be kind of skeevy about selling data. but basically every company does the same these days, and the app itself plays basically no part in it.
the only two permissions this app asks for are contacts and location. deny them. it asks for location to suggest events and contacts if you want to transfer tickets to another person. i didn’t login, but on opening the app it asks for location permission which i denied and the app works fine, and it never asked for contacts, presumably it won’t until you try to transfer a ticket. right now on my phone the app has no permissions at all and seems to work fine.
I haven’t bothered with this app, but. There are several apps out there that still function if you deny all privileges. They just ask again when you try to access a function that requires it.
It isn’t Spyware. I wish people would educate themselves instead of latching on to everything stupid they here on YouTube or Twich. If you don’t use the app it looks like you can’t go. Your choice. I would probably go out and read up on phone permissions and what they are before letting some troll dictate your ability to go to Blizzcon.
Sorry if this sounds mean but I’m absolutely sick of the misinformation being spread about this.
Just because an app asks for permissions to use something doesn’t automatically make it spyware. If it were proven it was recording and transmitting personal information sure it might be spyware.
But what was posted as “proof” is just the app asking for too many permissions. So far no one has tested to see if denying the permissions it wants means the QR code won’t generate.
How do you deny specific permissions? The only options I seem to have are a) install with whatever permissions the app wants, or b) refuse and the app won’t install. Is this because my version of Android is so old? (I think it’s 4 something.)
I’m not actually going to Blizzcon but I’m sure there are other people with old phones who do want to go and may therefore be interested in the answer.
Someone did say they could install the app denying the permissions and it installed and worked.
Two caveats though.
First, I haven’t tried this, just read that somebody had.
Second, they indicated that the App would ask again when you tried to access a function that required a particular permissions, as an example it would ask for permissions to see your contacts if you tried to transfer a ticket to someone else; don’t know specifically what permissions the QR function might need.
I haven’t used the app in a while, but I have in the past for another event.
When I installed the app, the only thing it asked for permission for was Location, which I denied.
The only other things the app actually may want to access is your contacts, WiFi, and Bluetooth.
Your WiFi permission is set in your phone’s settings, like any other app; and not something you need to set in the app itself. Same with Bluetooth.
The app doesn’t automatically set for access to your contacts, but will ask for permission for contacts if you want to transfer a ticket to another person. You don’t have to give it access to your contacts to transfer a ticket.
I bought the tickets using their website for the event I attended for a couple friends/family members. I used the app, via contacts permission, to send the tickets directly to them so we didn’t all have to arrive together.
It’s been about a year since I used it, so I don’t know what may have changed. But in my experience, denying any/all of the permissions had no impact on being able to generate the QR code.
That’s just to transfer a ticket from one person to another. The ticket is currently in my name. My husband had all my information to purchase it exactly as if he were me. But there’s nowhere to arrange for my character name to be the name printed on the badge. (All previous years I’ve gone, I have never had my real name on my badge. Always my main character’s name.)
Denying the app access to things doesn’t really solve not wanting to deal with having to watch it like a hawk to make sure it’s not doing anything. I don’t trust apps/websites/programs to not just up and do whatever they please without saying anything. Too many times I’ve somehow missed tiny, hidden boxes to UNcheck which I never would have checked in the first place for various things.
i mean - sharing your location data with an app isn’t a suspicious thing in itself. it’s an app that deals with tickets, and it wants to know your location so it can suggest tickets for stuff near you. that seems pretty reasonable.
phones don’t generally have security issues like say windows might. for an app to get permission to do something or read data or whatever, you have to allow it to. it pops up and asks in the same window for every permission, every time it asks. you can test this yourself. download the app and open it up. it will ask for location permission. deny it. that’s basically all there is to it. until it pops up and you hit ok it can’t read your location. and you can check in your list of apps to see what permissions it has at any time. i do this same thing with tapatalk’s app. it asks me for location permission like once a week. i don’t know why. i deny it periodically. end of story. there’s no magic privacy bogeyman to be scared of here.
From my experience in using it, the permissions are about the same as my Dunkin Donuts app.
Location to suggest nearest one.
Wifi as needed.
Saved personal data, including name and credit card and billing info to reload Dunkins Card.
You can even send coffee/donuts to others, although I’ve only been on the receiving end so I don’t know if it accesses your contacts to do it or not; but I think it did cause they didn’t need anything from me to send the coffee my way
All of which are optional and can be turned on/off by the user.
The AXS app, and the permissions it asks for, are pretty much the same as any other app you may use.
You don’t have to watch it like a hawk. If you don’t want to trust apps or anything like that it is your prerogative, but will also have to deal with the consequences of being overly paranoid. As has been stated the permissions the app is asking for are justified and not even close to out of the ordinary. There is no exposure of PII involved. This whole “controversy” is a bunch of trolls trying to cause problems by taking advantage of paranoia and ignorance of phone apps.
Which, again, is not an option I have. When I try to install an app I get a popup with a list of permissions the app needs and a button labeled “Accept.” That’s it. If I don’t click Accept, the app won’t install.
I was going to use the AXS app as a specific example here, but it turns out it won’t install on my phone at all, so I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t going to Blizzcon anyway. For people who are going, I sure hope the backup option works even if you never installed the app at all. Also hope they can help people who receive tickets as a gift and then have phone problems, as gift recipients won’t have the card used for purchase - this was something that came up several times in the review section for the app.
Edit: the reference to card above is because many AXS replies to app reviews said that as a backup, you should bring to the venue your ID and the card used to purchase the tickets. Likely that applies to Blizzcon too, but if so, I hope they’ll add that info somewhere: that if you have phone or app trouble, you’ll need ID and the card.
Hmmm. Might be something you’ll have to join the queue at the Solutions Desk when you get to Blizzcon.
Those are permissions that it might possibly want to use in the future.
That doesn’t mean the app actually has explicit permission to use those permissions without your input. When it needs to use that permission it’ll ask to use them.
No app has ever asked me for permission that way. The article you linked mentioned an “App Permission” phone setting, which I also don’t have. It must just be that my Android version is so old. But I’ll leave it here since it’s also so old it won’t run the AXS app anyway, so the details aren’t relevant.
Though as I said I hope the solutions desk will be able to help other people with phones this old because I’m sure I’m not alone in having one.