
The Gaming Police - slicedlime
http://www.entertainingcode.com/archives/the-gaming-police/
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wjdix
The Blizzard Terms of Service note that this will happen following a request
from law enforcement.

17.C Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet
Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other
information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law
enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes
that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

If one chooses to play the game, after having agreed to have their records
turned over in such a case, it seems like less of a moral issue. Another
reason why people should consider actually reading their terms of service
before agreeing.

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lmkg
I'm very glad the author is talking about his concern in a calm and reasoned
manner, and focuses on his specific issue with reasonable clarity, rather than
being sensationalist and conflating several issues together.

The specifics of the case aside, it is sort of troubling that a private
company can make a decision on how to enforce a law entirely unrelated to its
operations. I would have no problem with Blizzard being compelled to release
private information (given due process of law). I would have no problem with
them being bound not to release the information, by a privacy policy or
something. The fact that they can elect to comply or not, based on their own
whims, is somewhat troubling. At the least, I would like them to have a
explicit and specific policy of when they will comply.

Fortunately, this is a rather strange edge case based on jurisdictions, and
it's unlikely to come up in the future as awareness about this case makes
people use proxies (or stop playing). But the principle should still be
resolved.

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sethg
_Maryland police has no legal juridistiction to subpoena things from Blizzard
(situated elsewhere). The subpoena is more to be seen as a kind request for
information._

If the Maryland police had wanted to make more of an effort, couldn’t they
have asked a court in Blizzard’s jurisdiction to issue a subpoena? (Also note
that fleeing the country to avoid prosecution is a Federal crime, so the FBI
could have gotten involved.)

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angelbob
It's disturbing that Blizzard will hand over a thick folder of personal
information like candy on Halloween, even to (out of jurisdiction) law
officers. But there's nothing very Azeroth-specific going on there -- your
cellular provider could have done the same thing, basically.

