Blizzard Entertainment® Online Privacy Policy
Blizzard Entertainment and its affiliate companies (collectively "Blizzard") respects the privacy of its players and online visitors, and users of its products and services, and recognizes the importance of providing a secure environment for them. We have adopted a company-wide online Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) that explains how we may collect, store, use, process, disclose, and/or transfer your personal information provided by you. To the extent permitted by law, by continuing to use the Blizzard websites, you agree and hereby expressly consent that Blizzard Entertainment can collect, store, use, process, disclose and/or transfer your personal information according to this Privacy Policy as described below. You confirm that you are age 20 or over and a parental consent is not required for you to provide the information hereunder, as stipulated in the laws where you reside. If you are below 20, or the parent, please refer to specific compulsory requirements under “What about Children?” section below.
Please note that when you link to other sites from a Blizzard website, this Privacy Policy does not apply to, and cannot control the activities on, those other sites. We highly recommend that you read the privacy policy of any third party website you may be directed to before providing any personally identifiable information. Blizzard shall not be liable nor responsible for any damages or loss, in whatsoever form, arises out of or in connection with your use of or access to those other sites via the link on Blizzard website. This Privacy Policy also does not cover information provided when you apply for a job at Blizzard.
Blizzard Entertainment Ireland Limited. (“Blizzard Entertainment” or “We”), is the data controller for the processing of your personal data. We are a registered company located at located at Blackpool Retail Park, Co. Cork, Cork, Ireland.
If you are a visitor from outside the United States, the personal information you provide may be transferred to, stored, and processed within the United States or other countries where Blizzard maintains facilities or business operations. We adopt all the necessary legal safeguards to protect your personal information when transferring it between countries.
This Privacy Policy may change from time to time, so please check back periodically to ensure that you are aware of any changes. If we make a material change to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by posting the change on our websites or in this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Blizzard websites will signify your acceptance of these changes.
This Privacy Policy is issued in English language and translated into respective local languages where required by applicable law. In the event of any discrepancy or inconsistency between the English version of this Privacy Policy and any translation thereof, the English version will prevail.
1. What personal information is collected?
Information collected from you. If an online visitor submits information to us, it will usually be through: (1) the purchase of goods or services though our online platforms, (2) product or account registration, or registration for online game participation, (3) player match-up services, (4) message boards or forums, (5) eCards or recruit-a-friend e-mails, (6) warranty registrations, (7) online marketing campaign or contest registrations, (8) the playing of a game or use of a service, (9) surveys, research, and promotions, (10) customer service or technical support, (11) Share Wish List feature, and/or (12) newsletters.
We will collect account name, BattleTag, name, date of birth, address, country of residency, phone number, e-mail address and password from you. We do not require this information before granting access to our websites, however, you will not be able to utilize certain products, services, or features that require registration or receive materials such as newsletters unless such information is provided. We may also collect details in relation to transactions you make on Blizzard website, and/or information that are necessary to facilitate the licensing and purchasing of our products and services. The transaction related information include: name, phone number, address, credit card number, expiration date, email address, bank name, bank account number and/or bank account owner’s name.
For some activities, we may ask you to create a username and password and/or to provide other personal and non-personal information including but not limited to your age, date of birth, gender, and/or game and platform preferences; we may combine such information with other personal and/or non-personal information.
In specific cases, we may ask you to provide a copy of a document or government-issued ID to verify your identity, location, and/or account ownership. When photo identification is provided to us, we ask that you obfuscate any sensitive information per our customer service guidelines, and it is automatically deleted after 30 days, unless otherwise required to establish, defend, or exercise our legal rights.
From time to time, we may also post customer testimonials that contain personally identifiable information on Blizzard’s websites. However, we will obtain the customer’s consent to post these testimonials prior to publication in accordance with the applicable Blizzard agreement.
Additionally, communications made using a product or service should not be considered private. Blizzard may monitor and/or record your communications (including without limitation voice chat and chat text) when you are using a product or service for toxicity analysis, to prevent cheating and fraud, or for enforcement of Blizzard’s End User License Agreement (“EULA”) and/or terms of use. By using the voice chat functionality, you understand that your communications may be transcribed or analysed, including without limitation for accessibility purposes. Blizzard will only retain the voice recording temporarily, no longer than necessary to investigate and transcribe it. We provide notice when voice chat is monitored, you have the choice not to use such functionality by changing your in-game settings. Blizzard may also monitor your computer, console, or other device (including mobile device) for the signatures of unauthorized programs and communicate this information back to Blizzard about that unauthorized activity to prevent cheating and fraud, and to enforce our EULA. You understand that users should have no expectation of privacy concerning the transmission of any user generated content or communications, including without limitation chat text or voice communications, and you hereby acknowledge and agree that we will monitor and record such communications as described in this Privacy Policy. Because voice chat and other communications may be viewed and/or heard by other users, users should avoid revealing any personally identifiable information in those communications.
Information Collected Automatically. In addition, your web browser or client software may transmit certain geographic information or information regarding your computer (capabilities, game data processing, hardware of software information, cookie information, etc.) to us. We may use this information to generate aggregate statistics about our user community. In addition, Blizzard may use such information for security, system integrity (the prevention of hacking, cheats, etc.), or enforcement purposes. Blizzard may also collect IP information, which it may use to determine your approximate location.
Information collected from third parties (our vendors, affiliates, and business partners). Blizzard may enhance or merge the personal information collected from Blizzard websites, applications, and our games with data from third party partners and vendors in order to update your contact information, perform market analysis, improve our products, services, or systems, or for other purposes described in this Privacy Policy. If you register an account using your Facebook credentials, the following information may be collected: (1) your first and last name and other information made publicly available by you, (2) your friends list, and (3) the email address associated with your account. Similar data exchanges will occur when you link your Blizzard account with other companies, such as Twitch and console platforms. Furthermore, if you participate in a game or other feature where your score is posted on social media content, or if you use a “like” or “share” button for a feature on our sites or apps, then the third party might share information with us. For further information about how Facebook shares information, check Facebook’s Privacy Policy.
2. Why do we process your data and how do we use your personal information?
The personal information you provide Blizzard, and that Blizzard collects automatically, will allow us to provide with the best quality of our games and services, or fulfil your product or service order; alert you of new products or services, features, or enhancements; handle/route your customer service or technical support questions or issues; send eCards or “Recruit-a-Friend” emails; and/or notify you of upgrade opportunities, contests, promotions, or special events and offers. We also use this information to secure our services and users, to prevent cheating, abuse, exploitation, and fraud, to monitor for toxicity and perform analysis, account restrictions and penalties, and to enforce our agreements with you. In addition, we use your information to operate our business, including analyzing our performance, conducting research, meeting our legal obligations, and for recruitment purposes. Blizzard may also provide your personal information to other companies or organizations that offer products or services that may be of interest to you. Where applicable, we will notify you that the information will be shared and provide you with an opportunity to opt-out.
We may use your personal information for demographic analytic purposes to adapt our products and services. We do this to better understand and serve our customers.
Please be advised that personal information submitted by individuals when dealing with us in a business capacity is not subject to the uses set forth above or to any other practices stated in this Privacy Policy.
3. What type of communications may you receive?
Special Offers and Updates.
We will occasionally send you information on products, services, special deals, and promotions. Out of respect for your privacy, we present the option not to receive these types of communications. Please see the “Choices” section below.
Service-related Announcements
We will send you service-related announcements when it is necessary to do so. You will also receive communication regarding your account security, such as reminders to reset your password and alerts related to changes and suspicious login activity on your account. Generally, you may not opt-out of these service-related communications, which are not promotional in nature.
Game-related Announcements
We may send you information related to the game(s) you play. For instance, we may congratulate you on your recent success.
Customer Service
Based upon the personally identifiable information you provide us, we will send you a welcoming email to verify your username and password. We will also communicate with you in response to your inquiries, to provide the services you request, and to manage your account. We will communicate with you by email or telephone, in accordance with your wishes.
Recruit a Friend/E-cards/Share Wish List
If you choose to use our recruit-a-friend, Share Wish List, or e-card features, we will ask you for your friend’s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the website. In such email, your friend will be provided an opt-out/unsubscribe option. Blizzard does not store this information and uses it solely to send this one-time email and to track the success of our referral program. By providing your friend’s name and email address, you represent and warrant that you have obtained all required consents from your friend for the information to be processed by Blizzard for the purposes stated above.
4. Who is collecting your information?
When you are asked for information while on a Blizzard website or in a Blizzard game or service, you are sharing that information with Blizzard Entertainment.
Occasionally, Blizzard may use third party contractors to collect and process personal information on its behalf (for product and prize fulfilment, credit card processing, etc.). If your personal information will be disclosed to a third country, if required by law, you will be specifically provided with that information.
In addition, some services are provided with partner companies. If you do not want your information shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer of information by not using that particular service or by not providing any information. Please be aware that we cannot control all of the activities of third parties to whom we provide data, and while we cannot guarantee that they adhere to the same privacy and security procedures as Blizzard, we will take reasonable steps to assure that these third parties will sufficiently protect personal information.
Please be aware that advertisers or websites with links to and from our websites may collect personal information about you. And remember, this Privacy Policy does not apply to, and cannot control the activities of, those other advertisers or websites. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any advertiser or website you visit.
Our websites may include certain social media features such as the Facebook "Like" button, and widgets such as the Share this button or interactive mini-programs that run on our websites. These features may collect your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, which page you are visiting on our websites, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our websites. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
5. With whom may your personal information be shared?
Blizzard will share your personal information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy.
We may share non-personally identifiable, aggregated, and/or public information with third parties. Additionally, we may share your game play data, Battletag, Blizzard ID, and/or unique identifiers specific to your device with third parties to tailor content and to adjust and improve our services. In addition, we may share your personal information with our affiliated companies, available here, including for our affiliated or subsidiary companies’ own marketing, re-targeting, duplication removal, anti-cheat detection, and similar purposes. Blizzard Entertainment is not responsible for the privacy practices of our affiliates and the use of your information by those companies will be governed by those specific companies’ privacy policies, which you may find on each company’s website. If you purchase a product or license a game from another company on our Battle.net platform, we may share some of your account information with that company so they may establish a direct relationship with you. Because of that sharing, you may receive communications from that company. We share some of our players’ game data with our community of developers who create applications and websites that benefit our player community. You may opt-out of having your game data included in this program by opting out of game-data sharing in the “Privacy” section of Battle.net account management.
We may share your information with vendors Blizzard engages to perform services for Blizzard (for example, platform providers, media partners, event ticket providers, merchandise vendors, survey providers, billing, consumer services support, information technology hardware and software). In these situations, a written contract between Blizzard and the vendor shall control such disclosure, the vendor must agree to reasonable levels of security regarding your data and the vendor will not be permitted to use your data except as required for the performance of those services for Blizzard. If your data is anonymized, the vendor may use it for other purposes. Otherwise, we will ask you for your consent.
We reserve the right to disclose your Information if we are required to do so by law. We may also disclose your information to law enforcement or in civil litigation in connection with the enforcement of our rights or your legal obligations (e.g., bringing legal action against you if you are violating the EULA). We also reserve the right to disclose your personal information if we have a good faith belief that it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activities.
As with any business, your personal information is also an asset of Blizzard and will become part of our normal business records. As such, we may also disclose your personal information to a third party if we decide to sell a line of business to that third party, so you can continue to receive service and information in connection with that line of business with as little disruption as possible. Similarly, in the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or other similar event, your personal information may be transferred to Blizzard's successor or assign.
Blizzard websites may also have message boards, forums, and/or chat areas, where users can exchange ideas and communicate with one another. When posting to a message board, forum, or chat area, please be aware that the information is being made publicly available online and the user does so at his or her own risk. For certain forums, anyone posting or replying to a post may be doing so using their Real ID -- that is, their full first and last name -- with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character (see discussion regarding Real ID below). If your personal information is posted on one of our community forums, you may contact us at DPO@blizzard.com to request removal. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.
The identities of affiliated companies or service providers or third-party recipients shall be provided upon request.
6. What choices do you have regarding the collection, use, and distribution of your personal information?
You have choices over the Information provided by you and by other sources, and how Blizzard uses that Information.
You can exercise your choices by updating your preferences at any time and also by managing your settings in your Battle.net account, on your devices and third party accounts.
If you do not want to provide Blizzard with personal information, then you can choose not to provide it. Where required by law, we will indicate to you at the point of collection whether the provision of information is mandatory. If you choose not to provide us with personal information, we may not always be able to provide you with the Blizzard product or service you want. For example, without providing an email address, you cannot create a Battle.net account.
You may control how third parties collect and share your information by changing your preferences or opting out of collection directly with those third parties. Before disclosing information to third parties, we recommend you check their respective privacy policies for further details.
Your browser may allow you to set a Do Not Track (DNT) signal indicating that you do not wish your online activity to be tracked. Currently, our system does not support and cannot act on DNT signal headers that we may receive. However, the choices that we provide you concerning the collection and use of your personal information will continue to operate as described in this Privacy Policy.
You can exercise choices over how Blizzard uses your personal information and update your preferences at any time:
- to remove yourself from receiving targeted email marketing or newsletters from Blizzard, simply click the unsubscribe link in the email or access your Battle.net account and edit your email communication preferences. You will need your password to access your account; to unsubscribe from communications from our affiliates, please unsubscribe directly through the methods in those emails or privacy policies;
- to disable selected Cookies from collecting information relating to the effectiveness of advertising campaigns or analytics data and from serving you with personalized advertising, please see our Cookie Policy; and
- to remove having your game-data available to our community of application developers, opt-out of game-data sharing in the “Privacy” section of Battle.net account management.
If at any time you wish to opt out of having your personal information shared with third parties and/or receiving information from Blizzard (via e-mail or postal mail) about new products, services, or promotions, you can do so. You may contact us at DPO@blizzard.com. Please indicate what publications or services you no longer wish to receive so that we may better address your needs. If you opt-out of receiving email marketing communications from us, please note we may still contact you occasionally about the status of your account, such as to inform you that your account may be expiring, or for other service-related information.
7. What about Children?
Children Under 13
Once a child states that his/her age is under 13, they will be unable to register an account with us. We do not knowingly collect or store any personally identifiable information from children under 13. However, we may collect technical information required for delivering the service and for the support of our internal operations from all users of our properties. If parents believe that we have unintentionally collected their children’ personal information, or otherwise used their children’s personal information for another purpose, they may request the deletion of the information by contacting us at DPO@blizzard.com.
Note to Parents
We recognize a special obligation to protect personal information about young children. We urge parents to instruct their children to never give out their real names, addresses, or phone numbers, without parental permission, when online. Teenagers under the age of 20 and over the age of 13 should encourage their parents to review this policy and to contact us if they would like to revoke their consent (if they would like to do so) or to raise any concerns. For more information, you may visit our Parental Controls page at https://us.battle.net/account/parental-controls/index.html.
8. What is Real ID?
Real ID friends can see each other’s real-life name and can see each other’s characters across all Blizzard products and services. By participating in Real ID, you will have the option of making your real name visible to your friend’s friends, who will also be able to invite you to become friends. The controls for Real ID are located in Battle.net account management.
When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you will have access to several additional features, including:
- Real Names for Friends: Your Real ID friends will appear under their real-life names on your friends list, when chatting, communicating in-game, or viewing a character's profile.
- Cross-Realm and Cross-Game Chat: With Real ID, friends can chat cross-realm, cross-faction, and cross-game using Blizzard’s products and services.
- Rich Presence: You will see additional info on your friends list about what your Real ID friends are up to in Blizzard’s products and services in real time.
9. What is Global Play?
Certain Blizzard games feature "Global Play" which allows you to play with other players outside of the region associated with the creation of your Blizzard account. This feature is very beneficial to players who travel frequently or have friends and family in other regions. The Global Play feature requires that some or all of the personal information that you provided when you created your Blizzard account be transferred to servers operated by Blizzard in other regions.
10. What are tracking technologies and how are they used?
As is true with most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include a unique identifier such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address and non-personal information such as your browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to improve the services we offer you, to improve marketing, analytics, or website functionality.
Blizzard and our affiliates and partners, such as marketing partners and analytics providers, may use tracking technologies such as cookies, beacons, tags and scripts. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the websites, tracking users’ movements around the websites, and to gather demographic information about our user base. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual and aggregated basis.
We use cookies for various purposes including our shopping cart, to remember users’ settings (e.g. language preference), and for authentication. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, you may still use our websites, but your ability to use some features or areas of our websites may be limited.
We may also use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which e-mails have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. For this reason, these types of clear gifs are tied to personally identifiable information.
We, and third parties with whom we partner to provide certain features on our websites or to display advertising based on your web browsing activity, use Local Shared Objects such as Flash cookies, and Local Storage such as HTML5, to store content information and preferences. Various browsers may offer their own management tools for removing HTML5. To manage Flash cookies, please click here.
We partner with third party ad networks to either display advertising on our websites or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partners may use tracking technologies to collect information about your activities on this and other websites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. Some of these ad networks are members of the Networking Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) and/or the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) – organizations who offer a single location to opt out of receiving tailored ads. If you wish to not have your information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out by visiting the DAA’s Consumer Choice page and/or the NAI’s Consumer Opt-Out page. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic, or non-targeted, ads. Please also note that we strive to adhere to the DAA’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising.
11. What are Internet Protocol addresses?
An Internet Protocol ("IP") address is the unique number assigned to your server or Internet Service Provider (“ISP”). Blizzard may track such IP addresses for system administration, to report aggregate information, site tracking, security purposes, or to prevent our servers from being abused. See tracking technology discussion above.
12. What do you do if you want to access, correct or delete your personal information?
If for any reason you are concerned with the way we are using your personal information, or would like to access, correct or request that we delete such personal information, please contact us by e-mailing DPO at DPO@blizzard.com or the contact details below. We will respond to any request for access within 30 days or within the period as requested by applicable law.
In some cases, we may not be able to delete your personal information and will retain and use the information as long as necessary to (a) protect our business, systems, and users from fraudulent activity, (b) address technical issues that impair functionality, (c) for scientific or historical research, (d) comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and/or fulfil our internal purposes reasonably related to your relationship with us.
Please note that the deletion of your data may lead to the termination of your account and all applicable services. The deletion of a Battle.net account is permanent and cannot be reversed; also, all games, assets and history will also be permanently deleted.
Subject to applicable laws, you may also be entitled to other actions in relation to your personal data. These may include the:
a) Right to be informed; b) Right to withdraw consent, or to request a change to the scope of your consent; however, any consent which was obtained earlier shall not be affected; c) Right to request the disclosure of the acquisition of the personal information obtained without your consent; d) Right to restriction of processing of your personal information; e) Right to request that we transfer your personal information in a format which is generally readable or usable by automatic device or tool and f) Right to be indemnified for any damages sustained due to such inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, false, unlawfully obtained or unauthorized use of personal information.
However, your rights above may be limited in that we may deny the exercise of your rights pursuant to an exemption provided by law. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we may be entitled to charge reasonable expenses incurred in respect to handling any of the above requests.
13. How secure is my personal information?
The security of your personal information is important to us. Blizzard takes a range of security measures designed to protect your personal information and keep it confidential (unless it is non-confidential by nature, for example, publicly-available information like user generated content, leaderboard rankings, forum posts and scores, etc.). We also take steps to ensure that the personal information collected is protected from misuse and alteration. When credit card information is transmitted we use industry standard, SSL (secure sockets layer) encryption. In the event that there is a security breach which is likely to be a high risk to impact rights and freedom of the data subject, we will notify such breach and remedial actions to our users/data subjects without undue delay. We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once it is received.
In addition, we will take reasonable steps to assure that third parties to whom we transfer any data will provide sufficient protection of personal information. However, the Internet by its nature is not a secure environment and the nature of security risks is constantly evolving, as area the technical and organizational industry standards relating to management of those risks. The complete security of any personal information collected, stored, or used by us or our partners cannot therefore be guaranteed.
It is very important for you to understand that you control the security of your account to a great extent. Choosing a password you don’t use on any other system is important. Changing that password occasionally is also a good idea. Another way to substantially increase your account security is to add a free Blizzard authenticator app to your phone; just go to the app store for your phone and download it at no cost to you.
14. What if you have a question or complaint?
If you have any questions or wish to file a complaint, please feel free to contact us at DPO@blizzard.com. You may also lodge a complaint before the local privacy regulator in your jurisdiction.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on April 20, 2023.