If you've ventured into Zul'Gurub and come up against Bloodlord Mandokir, you've heard him announce that he's watching a player in your group: "Sneakythief I am watching you!" Then he kills that player. Usually.

Fortunately, Blizzard's anti-cheat software that runs while you're playing WoW doesn't attempt to actually kill you while it watches, but it is checking your computer for hacks and programs that violate the EULA.

Some players feel it goes too far and violates their privacy. The anti-cheat program is known as Warden and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has declared it spyware and is making murloc noises of outrage: "Blizzard calls this an “anti-cheating system.” We call it a massive invasion of privacy."
We're not sure what to call it, but we're grabbing some popcorn and letting everyone else get in on the fight. Blizzard's response is that no personal information is collected, the EULA players agree to allows them to scan the player's PC, and many other companies are doing similar scans. A more neutral party at the law firm of Lewis Silken writes about the spat at Gameindustry.biz.

Silken sides with Blizzard for the most part: "So are Blizzard on the wrong side of the law? Well, no. The Warden is clearly not "spyware" in the traditional sense of the word - there is nothing malicious about it and access is specifically authorised by the EULA. So computer misuse can be ruled out." He also notes that no data is actually processed by the Warden program and that there's no violation of privacy since the players give Blizzard the right to inspect their PCs when they agree to the EULA.

So there seems to be little issue with the legality of the program according to Silken, but that doesn't mean that it isn't intrusive or that players should not let Blizzard know how they feel about it. If enough of you make angry murloc noises, who knows what will happen?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion