The WoW.com article didn't mention that Blizzard was served with a subpeona. If you followed the link to the original article, it did.

That's an important detail that I wish the WoW.com article had included. I was upset at first thinking that Blizzard had just handed over someones information to some random police officer. I had two guildies go through a nasty divorce recently, and what if one of them had happened to be law enforcement and willing to cross the ethical line?

While police are generally honest decent folks, even honest decent folks can do crazy things in the wrong situation. A nasty divorce for example. As long as Blizzard requires a subpeona, required that extra check that brings in an extra party to review the legitimacy of the request, I'm comfortable with it.

You just cannot assume that all people are decent all the time. I don't believe the government is OUT TO GET ME!!!! But I do believe that sometimes police powers are abused, even in the United States. Sometimes it is a matter of policy, more often it's one misguided individual. Just because you haven't done anything wrong, doesn't mean you might not need to hide from someone that is doing something wrong.

Reply