WOW Enables Cyber Stalking and Hates Apple Pie

Thursday, 21 January 2010 10:17 Written by Mark C. Barlet

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Did you ever blow off a date because you were “not feeling well” just so you could join your guild in the dungeon crawl of crypt lord Anub'arak (again) because you heard that some Naxxramas had spoken ill of your mother? Or have you skipped out of the church bake sale because there was a chance to go and take a stab at Onyxia. Well, now you are in trouble, WOW Armory has made the move to add timestamps to the character feeds, meaning that if someone knows your character’s name, they can track when you are playing.

This has opened up a host of privacy concerns ranging from “who cares” to Mrs. Lovejoy’s, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!” From where I stand, I can understand both sides. Do we really have privacy on the inter-tubes anymore? Did we ever? From the moment you connected your PC to the web it has been spitting out info about you, like it or not. There are ways to minimize your PC’s data spewing tendencies, but in the end if anyone really wanted to gather a folder on your web habits, they could. Heck, Google has a multi-billion dollar company built on data gathering and using that data to serve you ads. That being said, many of these data gathering schemes are about large numbers, mass pools of users, and less about one person. The World of Warcraft move on the other hand is ALL about you. How do you feel about that?

Let’s take this to the absurd, because that is where we all like to go (mainly because it is more fun there). Does the crazy pervert down the street now know that little Johnny or Sussi comes home and plays WOW from the moment they walk in from school until Mom pulls into the driveway, and via a casual conversation know that “Pixelane” is Sussi’s mage? He can now find out. moe What about that lie you told your husband about how you were not going to spend the whole time he was away at the “Getting it touch with your inner woman men’s retreat” playing WOW? Or, can the data now be used during a heated custody battle to show that you hate Mr. Fluffers, the 4 year old tabby you and the ex adopted, because you are always gaming?

From the chatter on the web, the real issue is not that the timestamp is there, it is that you are not able to opt out of it. I guess we will have to wait and see how this plays out. And just so you know… I’m watching you game!

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