While everyone is discussing the big things...

the small devils are at work.

I just received an reminder email from Blizzard/Battle.net about the 'new privacy options'. Which really makes me cry as I don't remember seeing one earlier.

Greetings,
We'd like to make sure you're aware of the new privacy options we've introduced to Battle.net. These options provide Real ID users with additional tools for customizing the service based on their preferences.
Real ID offers an optional, convenient way for keeping in touch with real-world friends you know and trust, whether they're playing World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, or one of our future games. The "Friends of Friends" and "Add Facebook Friends" features provide you with even more options to stay connected while you play:

Friends of Friends enables a player's Real ID friends to see the names of his or her other Real ID friends. This makes it easier for players to locate mutual real-world friends on Battle.net and invite these friends to join their own Real ID friends list.
The Add Facebook Friends search tool displays the first and last names of a player's Facebook friends who are also on Battle.net and allows the player to send these friends a Real ID friend request.

The purpose of these optional features is to help players merge and expand their social networks of trusted friends on Battle.net by making it easier to add real-life friends to their in-game friends lists. You can easily opt in or out of any or all of them by managing your Battle.net privacy settings.

 The way I read this piece of information is that the options are off by default and you have to go and opt in for them, though. It seems that they learned at least something about the touchy issue of gamer's privacy.


Anyhow. Nice job, Blizzard: as people are scurrying around with the changes of 4.0.1., they are not as prone to notice these small changes posed for their ingame privacy.


C out