Your Thoughts - Blizzard forcing you to send your system information for a survey?

[Tim]

01/08 Upcoming Data Survey
We plan to begin collecting non-personal system specifications data from all World of Warcraft players again in the very near future. Players who have not merged their World of Warcraft account with a Battle.net account will see a message stating, "Submitting non-personal system information". However, those who are playing with a Battle.net account will not see this message even though the system data is being gathered. This process will run for approximately one week. Please also rest assured that this data survey will have absolutely no affect on gameplay.

What are your thoughts on Blizzard sending your system information to them? Don't be fooled either by the non-personal nature of it. It is indeed personal. Why would I say this? Well to start, they clearly have the capability of sending your personal information to them, and they clearly have no oversight or transparency set in place to validate that they are NOT sending personal information. This is why 3rd party companies come into place with regards to data gathering, especially surveys, to add transparency and validation to information gathering.

I'm not saying Blizzard is logging your keys or anything, I'm just saying nobody is watching them, nobody is validating what information they are taking from you, and Blizzard is fully capable of taking it all and reporting to you nothing.

ALSO!

They could be and very well might be using this survey to make money. The results of this survey would be worth a LOT of money to companies such as Nvidia, ATI, Dell, Alienware, Microsoft, Logitech, etc. They would LOVE to get their hands on survey information about what types of PC gaming hardware WoW gamers are using. This would enable them to better market products to the general public.

Do you want people making money off things you have spent money on without your explicit consent? I sure as hell don't.

My thoughts: I want completely transparency in this survey process. I want to know exactly what is being collected and where the data is going and I want this to be published in their privacy policy. I want 3rd party validation and management of this information to insure its integrity. I want to be able to take action should this information be used in a manner that I have not explicity agreed to. I want to be paid if Blizzard sells this information or otherwise trades it to B2B partners. My information is valuable, and if somebody is to make a buck off of it, it should be me, not them.

I want to opt out of this survey.

Your thoughts?

[ebony]

Blizzed allways does this before new Exp are being made its a guilde to see what players computers are so they can 1, make the game better 2, not add so much that noone can play the new exp as there computers suck and they lose to many players as they can not play the game to much. This info mircosoft takes from your computer each day of the week same system really just see what stats they are running

pc + internet part off "The Network" = the world can see what your useing just like someone looking at your house from the outside they can go inside without the key. Blizzed not going "inside" all there doing is copying Windows System info and sending it to a log server i could set somethinking like this up in a few hours just from any forums its really really easy code to make

[Spetty]

Originally Posted by ebony

Blizzed allways does this before new Exp are being made its a guilde to see what players computers are so they can 1, make the game better 2, not add so much that noone can play the new exp as there computers suck and they lose to many players as they can not play the game to much. This info mircosoft takes from your computer each day of the week same system really just see what stats they are running

pc + internet part off "The Network" = the world can see what your useing just like someone looking at your house from the outside they can not blizzed not going "inside" all there doing is copying Windows System info and sending it to a log server i could set somethinking like this up in a few hours just from any forums its really really easy code to make

Pretty much what its all about. They are at the point of the next expansion to see how much better they can improve the game visually without having many people quit or buy new computers.

[Boiling]

Ehh I'm different about it. Its not something they should do to people who do not want to send information though.

[ebony]

mircosoft been doing it years as long as its in the TOS that it is they can do whatever they like/wont posted info what your sending in a forum somwhere its very stand stuff.

[arbiter]

Originally Posted by Boiling

Ehh I'm different about it. Its not something they should do to people who do not want to send information though.

everyone that plays wow agreed to this though.

Originally Posted by EULA 17.b

WHEN THE GAME IS RUNNING, BLIZZARD MAY OBTAIN CERTAIN IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER AND ITS OPERATING SYSTEM, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR HARD DRIVES, CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT, IP ADDRESS(ES) AND OPERATING SYSTEM(S), FOR PURPOSES OF IMPROVING THE GAME AND/OR THE SERVICE, AND TO POLICE AND ENFORCE THE PROVISIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT AND THE EULA.

i would say they are just collecting info to see how far they can push the next expansion pack
by gathering the average computer specs.

[ebony]

    * Operating system:Windows 2.5.1.2600 (SP 3)
    * CPU type:             Intel(R) Pentium(R) D  CPU 2.66GHz
    * CPU Speed (GHz):2.68
    * System memory (GB):1.999
    * Graphics card model:Radeon X1650 Series  
    * Graphics card driver:ati2dvag.dll
    * Desktop resolution:1440x900
    * Hard disk size (GB):279.451
    * Hard disk free space (GB):231.83

this is all blizzed looks like there taken from my pc (i see all , i know i posted somewhere else to)

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Boiling

Ehh I'm different about it. Its not something they should do to people who do not want to send information though.

Amen.

They should have a means for people to opt out of this survey.

[Yazoo]

I don't really care if they take some infos and sell it, and whatever they do, they probably covered themselves with the last EULA you clicked OK, so there really is nothing you can do if you're not pleased with the way they operate.

My only hope is that the gather system infos to see if they can enhance graphical quality in the new expansion.

[ebony]

My only hope is that the gather system infos to see if they can enhance graphical quality in the new expansion.

Till they see my system