Fuck You Blizzard

I logged into Starcraft after months of inactivity because I wanted to take it easy today and just play a quick game or two.  I was shocked to see my real, actual, legal name, and the real, actual legal names of my friends in the game.

Keep in mind, I didn't even tell Blizzard my real name.  When I went through the forced registration that I put up with just to play a video game, I gave them a single letter of the alphabet for my last name.  Random assholes on the internet* can see my full last name, however.  So...they must have grabbed my name off my credit card.  And then opted me in to this real id shit without my knowledge?  I don't remember much, but I DO remember not seeing my friend's real names all over the place.  How come the only other people who are about this are privacy freaks?  I'm not a privacy freak.  I just don't feel like having to manage personal information while I'm trying to play some video game.  And manage it you must--apparently there is already an unfixed vulnerability where people can steal your name.  So thats great.

Fortunately, two can play this game.  I happen to have a credit card in the name of Jason Bourne.  You too can do this--the credit card companies don't care.  All you have to do is ask for a second card for an authorized user.  I will probably do this if I end up playing starcraft a lot more.  Now that I think of it, perhaps I should start using a that card again.  It seemed unecessary when I started buying almost everything from Amazon (FYI: it is my own personal opinion that Amazon would never dream of violating their customers privacy like this).  For now, I'm just going to disable RealID.

If we were previously starcraft buddies, you'll have to add me again.

How to Disable RealID

1) According to google the BattleNet site is battle.net...I used to know that.

2) account

3) settings

4) communication preferences




*Blizzard calls them "friends of friends"