During the recent Real ID catastrophe on the forums, many players decided to appeal to an industry source that might have been able to sway Blizzard to change its mind. These players contacted the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) as a Better Business Bureau-type middleman in this situation with their concerns. The ESRB itself has championed such causes in the past with its Privacy Online program, which is designed to help companies meet various privacy laws like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
That should be enough to teach Blizzard not to use real names in a fantasy game, right?
However, it appears as if the ESRB don't necessarily understand the basics themselves. In what could be called a rookie mistake, the ESRB did a Reply All to everyone who had emailed them with concerns, thus unintentionally exposing almost 1,000 email addresses to the other recipients.
Oops. Looks like the ESRB accidentally pulled the same situation that Blizzard did, except with Email addresses. It's almost as if Beavis and Butthead themselves were the ones who did the replying
But fortunately, the ESRB has issued an apology involving what justhappened.
Yesterday we sent an e-mail to a number of consumers who wrote to us in recent days expressing their concern with respect to Blizzard's Real ID program. Given the large number of messages we received, we decided to respond with a mass e-mail so those who'd written us would receive our response as quickly as possible - rather than responding to each message individually, as is our usual practice.
Through an unfortunate error by one of our employees, some recipients were able to see the e-mail addresses of others who wrote on the same issue. Needless to say, it was never our intention to reveal this information and for that we are genuinely sorry. Those who write to ESRB to express their views expect and deserve to have their contact and personal information protected. In this case, we failed to do so and are doing everything we can to ensure it will not happen again in the future.
The fact that our message addressed individuals' concerns with respect to their privacy underscores how truly disappointing a mistake this was on our part. We work with companies to ensure they are handling people's private information with confidentiality, care and respect. It is only right that we set a good example and do no less ourselves.
We sincerely apologize to those who were affected by this error and appreciate their understanding.
Sincerely,
Entertainment Software Rating Board
Folks, if you want more on the Real ID fiasco, you can read more about it here. And keep your eyes on this page tomorrow. I have a feeling the NPD will be available.
Works Cited
WoW page 1 This includes the letter concering the Real ID fiasco.
WoW Page 2
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