RSS feeds on the Armory and privacy concerns.

Bluspacecow · 01-20-10, 04:12 PM

Oh hai guys.

This is another one of those Bluspacecow!Bored posts. Otherwise known as incoming-wall-of-text-for-something-i'm-curious-about

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As you may or may not know the Armory now has RSS feeds on it. Wait. You didn't know this ? Go have a look now.

Any Armory page now RSS Feeds of what your toon has been doing. Everyone has them. Basic stuff like what gear you've obtained and what bosses you've done. Nothing that wasn't in the achievements but now it's right there on the right hand side of the page.

Here's my Druid I'm gearing up atm :

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-f...in&cn=Fuzzyelf

Yes I know. Fail gear is Fail. Note that if you click the orange RSS icon you get to make a custom feed you can throw into a RSS reader.

Now Blizzard have a Terms of Use agreement and a End User License thingy both that state they own all your toons and the information about them.

Here's the relevant sections of both agreement

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html

All rights and title in and to the Service (including without limitation any user accounts, titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialogue, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, "applets" incorporated into the Game Client, transcripts of the chat rooms, character profile information, recordings of games played using the Game Client, and the Game Client and server software) are owned by Blizzard or its licensors. The Game and the Service are protected by United States and international laws, and may contain certain licensed materials in which Blizzard's licensors may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this Agreement.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html

A. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including without limitation any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, character inventories, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions and recordings, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, and any related documentation) are owned or licensed by Blizzard. The Game is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international treaties and conventions, and other laws. The Game may contain materials licensed by third parties, and the licensors of those materials may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this License Agreement.

I suppose my enquiry is :

Given the fact that Blizzard owns your characters and all information about them....

Can we really claim privacy concerns about the new RSS feeds on the Armory?

Do we have any right to complain ?

Can we force them to do anything about it ?

Is the ToU and EULA I've linked above legally binding ?

I mean everyone has to agree to both in order to play. You agree by scrolling down a document then clicking a button. The button does not become active until you've scrolled down the document fully implicitly implying you have indeed read it and are agreeing to it by clicking OK.

See IMHO we don't have a right to complain. Information about your toon is Blizzard's property according to 2 legal documents that we agree to for evey patch that comes out. We can complain about it and request that they change it but that's about all we can do. There's still privacy concerns there
but I don't think we can do much about it considering the Tou & EULA both of which we agree to before playing.

What are your guys thoughts ?

Please if you tell me I'm wrong please outline why I'm wrong with citations if possible

cloudwolf · 01-20-10, 05:11 PM

I don't think we have a right to complain too much about it. We can make requests; but full blown complaints I don't think we can't. The only question about the EULA ToU I wonder about is because its a simple i agree and not a signature to bind the legal document is it in fact legal?

kasca · 01-20-10, 05:30 PM

I see where this can be miss used by people. I do think it way more info then should be shown. But as normal bliz wont care what we think.

Dridzt · 01-20-10, 06:32 PM

I'm not passionate one way or the other (at least partly because I'm at a place in my life I don't care who knows what about my online time spent).

However it does open up some less than agreeable venues
- makes online stalking easier to name the most obvious.
- makes it easier for your boss/mum to check what you were doing x day y time. (that you said you were studying or working on deadline)
- etc.

Easiest thing they could do to cover their behinds is provide customers with an "opt out" feature.

Just my 2c.

Bluspacecow · 01-21-10, 12:30 AM

Originally Posted by cloudwolf

I don't think we have a right to complain too much about it. We can make requests; but full blown complaints I don't think we can't. The only question about the EULA ToU I wonder about is because its a simple i agree and not a signature to bind the legal document is it in fact legal?

Well if a signature to make it legally binding is required then could you not argue that pretty much all web registrations and software agreements (the ones that pop up before use of the software) are now null and void ?

There's a lot of them out there including beta testing that uses NDA's use software agreements you click agree to right ?

01-21-10, 03:18 AM

Originally Posted by cloudwolf

I don't think we have a right to complain too much about it. We can make requests; but full blown complaints I don't think we can't. The only question about the EULA ToU I wonder about is because its a simple i agree and not a signature to bind the legal document is it in fact legal?

It's very legal.

**I AM NOT CURRENTLY A MEMBER OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION IN MY PLACE OF RESIDENCE. CONSIDER THIS "INFORMED DISCUSSION", NOT TRUE LEGAL ADVICE.**

Ahem, as I was saying...

Most (if not all) software license agreements are a type of form contract known as an adhesion contract. These kinds of contracts were designed so that businesses could easily form legally-binding agreements with large numbers of people. They do this by a crude but simple legal mechanic: there are no negotiations whatsoever between parties, and the contract is presented it its' final and only form for acceptance by the other party. It's essentially a "take it or leave it" basis.

What this means is that the offeror hands out a cookie-cutter contract with very broad terms, and gives you (the offeree) a choice: accept this contract as it stands, or don't. When it comes to something like software (which contains language to the affect of "we control your use of our product"), it's essentially "agree with whatever we say in this document, or you cannot use our product/service/whatever".

Then, they give you the means to make that choice. How that choice is made depends on the language in the contract, and is part of the agreement (i.e., "Clicking this 'Accept' box is a declaration of acceptance of this contract"). Again, "take it or leave it". This also serves another purpose: it forces you to consider that choice (by giving you both options and making you decide which one to choose...what I mean is that you're clearly offered the option to turn down the offer). They also (and this is HUGELY important) show you the terms you're agreeing to. Otherwise it's non est factum and not legally binding.

And keep in mind...it doesn't matter if you read a single letter of the contract. If you accept the terms presented to you by the offeror, it's set regardless of your knowledge. This is commonly known as "ignorance does not excuse" (i.e., "I didn't know the gun was loaded" is not an acceptable reason to dismiss a shooting). Obviously if there's anything in there deemed particularly heinous ("all ur stuffs is MINE!") unconscionability comes in to play and you've got a case (depending on the severity...it's really pretty subjective. Many jurisdictions consider "shock value" an indicator).

Now after all this, there's just one thing left to make it a legally binding contract: capacity. Are you capable of accepting a contract? That's really something that can't be decided by anyone but the court. However, unless you're a pre-teen, physically incompetent, or severely mentally unstable...there's not many courts (if any) that would side with you.

So...there's really nothing from a legal standpoint you can do about the RSS feeds. In fact, there's really nothing you can do about anything regarding any type of information Blizzard has control of unless they explicitly state that said information is to be protected (like your email and physical addresses, name, and financial information).

Personally, I don't care. The people who run with me know what's up, and the people who refuse to aren't making the game fun for me. I'll stick with the four awesome people in our two-guild consortium of people who *gasp* still play the game for fun...the way it was meant to be.

So excuse me...I'm off to see how many penguins I can get to follow me at one time.

01-21-10, 03:20 AM

Oh, and as a final note before I go to bed: Anyone else set their new awesome Armory poses yet?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...hal&cn=Amenity

I want YOU...to ride the piggy!

nightcracker · 01-21-10, 03:43 AM

About the binding of a contract:

Many people don't know that a simple promise is as binding as a contract(in dutch law, I think also in US law). This means if you say "I'm going to the supermarket today and if I don't you may have my house" and you don't go to the supermarket, then the guy you said it to is the owner of the house. The problem comes with the prove of the promise, because you can't record someone without him knowing/wanting it and use it as proof in court. But if you say, for example on television, that John Wincott(some random guy I made up) is from now the owner of my house, that he legally is the owner of the house, wether it was in a contract, or spoken. Another example is the pledge of the president.

And the smart part of blizzard is, they made it so that you can't play the game without having agreed to the rules thereby being binding.

Bluspacecow · 01-21-10, 05:18 AM

Thanks guys lots of intelligent discussion going on here. Just wanted to cover my research bases before correcting people on the O. forums about it.

Off Topic : In other news here in NZ the land's finally said "F... This" to all the hot humid weather we have been having. There's thunder , lightning and rain so hard it's like living in a monsoon rainforest.

This makes me happy as our farmers have been needing the rain as well as our hydroelectric power stations.

All though thunder ....is kinda all types of scarey , majestic and awe inspiring all at once

forty2j · 01-26-10, 08:46 AM

Yes, it's perfectly legal. I find it a bit creepy though. I have no problem with my current gear & spec being splattered all over teh interwebs. But now.. I can tell my guild "I've been running HPoS every day and my damn boots haven't dropped yet", and they can say "Hmm.. looks like you missed Sunday & Thursday, and you've only run it 8 times so far".

Ick.