A leaked document from developer Blizzard shows that the company is ready to work with law enforcement agencies when they are interested in obtaining personal information about the players of the most popular subscription based MMO in the industry, World of Warcraft.
The document has been leaked by AntiSec, a hacking group, and has apparently been obtained from an expert working at the cybercrime division of the California Department of Justice.
It shows that Blizzard holds information about those who play its MMO including IP addresses, details used for log in, accounts for all payments including back account and credit card information, chat logs, private messages and other personal information voluntarily linked to an account.
The document, which has been last reviewed during 2009 also offers information on how Blizzard should respond to warrants, sub-poenas and court orders linked to accounts for World of Warcraft.
The company claims that, in emergency situations that are not clearly defined, it is also ready to share information on a voluntary basis.
It also shows that most of the private information that Blizzard has about a player will be stored indefinitely but that private messages will be deleted after a period of 180 days.
It's not clear whether this deletion rule also applies to chat logs.
Blizzard has not offered any official comment on the leaked information or on the policy it has linked to cooperation with law enforcement entities.
The big problem with Blizzard's policy of holding on to most personal information for as long as it can is that it makes the player base of World of Warcraft very vulnerable to a security breach, even those who are no longer playing the game or are thinking about quitting.
The
Blizzard MMO has recently continued losing players and is feeling the threat of the rise of the free-to-play multiplayer titles, like DC Universe Online.
Find us on Google+
No user comments yet.
Be the first to express your opinion!
