I never thought of it before but after reading someone else’s topic whilst browsing the forums I thought it best to let you know I sometimes play WoW using a Shadow PC. Shadow PC is a gaming PC streaming service, their i.p is in Dunkirk in France where my own personal i.p when I’m not using Shadow is in Northern Ireland. I don’t want to get banned mistakenly for this. Do you think I should send in a support ticket to let Blizz know?
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You’re kidding, right?
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They’re not allowed, with the exception of Nvidia’s Geforce NOW.
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I’m 99% sure you need to stop using it straight away as, if I’m reading it right, it’s one of the things that can give you an instant ban.
Sorry, old person brain here so I may be wrong, but I have an idea that programs like that can be found on your pc even if you’re not using it so I would suggest you remove it completely to be safe.
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You can up that to 100%.
The use of game streaming services in WoW is explicitly disallowed in the ToS, Geforce NOW being the only exception.
This is akin to turning yourself in to the police with a written confession in hand in hopes of getting teh corresponding law changed. An arguably noble but at the end of the day horrifically misguided way to achieve the desired outcome.
For your own sake, I recommend that you simply stop using it before you get banned now that you know what´s up, as simply admitting to using it will not magically make it acceptable to Blizzard or grant you an exception. 
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The whole thing is actually pretty vague, as I tried to read Blizzard’s EULA, they talk about commitment to allowing cloud services for the EEA, which I guess Northern Ireland isn’t a part of so does this mean OP isn’t allowed to use any cloud streaming at all?
Also, granted it’s not Shadow PC, but I read that Microsoft entered a partnership with Boosteroid, and Boosteroid does have WoW, so I’d imagine Boosteroid should be allowed like GeForce Now.
Edit: considering this tweet exist I believe this is legit, considering it’s a reply from the official WoW account
https://x.com/Warcraft/status/1829572730112647175?t=9x0NgDn9zy9byA_eXt3sMQ&s=19
Sure I’ve never heard of boosteroid until today but they have servers in several countries in Europe including the UK.
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The ToS says:
FOR INDIVIDUALS BASED IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA: As an integral part of its End User License Agreement (EULA), Microsoft agrees to allow Consumers to play, solely for their personal use, Eligible Games on a Streaming Service on any device that they own, as defined in and pursuant to the Commitments entered into by Microsoft and made legally binding by the European Commission in its decision under Article 8(2) of Regulation (EC) 139/2004 in case M.10646 – Microsoft/Activision Blizzard. See https://www.xbox.com/en-US/legal/activision-blizzard-cloud-game-streaming-eu.
Which to me says, if you’re in the EEA you are allowed to.
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Yet I read further down:
Cloud Computing: Subject to 1.B.vi hereof, use the Platform, including a Game, in connection with any unauthorized third-party “cloud computing” services, “cloud gaming” services, or any software or service designed to enable the unauthorized streaming or transmission of Game content from a third-party server to any device. For the avoidance of doubt, this Section 1.C.v does not prohibit the use of any service that has been authorized by Blizzard.
Sooo you have to be using a cloud service that Blizzard have authorised. Which are you using, basically?
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You are correct.
Much of WoW’s ToS doesn’t apply in the EU because the EU is regulating and outlawing hundreds of predatory practices coming in from the US, this being one of them.
I am entirely unable to see how streaming WoW allows exploitation.
In any case, it is lawful for this company to offer the stream. Whether it is lawful for OP to use it depends on her location. It would be lawful for me to use it.
And while we’re at it, it would also be allowed for me to reverse-engineer WoW’s DRM to play it in any way I see fit purely for personal use.
Isn’t law fun? 
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I did some law at university and found it very fun but also a right pain 
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I haven’t studied law but I have seen enough EU law to give me an instant headache. As a matter of fact, merely finding the law text was difficult.
Danish law is so much easier…
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OP says their IP is in Northern Ireland, which unless they use a VPN means they’re not in the EU, or even the EEA. What UK laws say about it I don’t know.
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The IP being in Northern Ireland is quite different from her actually being in Northern Ireland, but I’d advise her to be careful.
Then again, Blizzard can’t really tell where the stream is actually going, so when they see a french IP they’re pretty much out of luck. The only thing they can do is tell the company to stop streaming WoW to people outside the EEA, and they haven’t done that apparently.
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Thank you for that… I was assuming that the US version, which IIRC only allows GFN, was identical to the EU version, but apparently it is not. Blizzard apparently does their EULAs differently according to locale, which is IMO an unnecessary burden on the legal team and with it cost incursion, but it´s their money to spend.
We do it exactly the other way around, we write one that assumes the most restrictive legal system (restrictive in the sense that we can´t outlaw practices willy nilly) so as to be safe “everywhere”… so basically we assume everywhere is the EU and only in very specific cases change 1 or 2 lines due to local laws.
That said, it does say “Microsoft” and not “Blizzard”, so it´s probably safe to assume that it was reworked some time post acquisition in late 2023… Just another way in which the MS Buyout was a win for gamers
edit Just read what came after that… well, so much for that theory
You can do just about anything imaginable within reason for personal use, including outright stealing patents to make your own personal version. It´s when you start trying to sell the result that lawyers get involved 
Wanna set up a private WoW server in your bedroom taht only you can connect to? Have at it, ain´t nobody gonna stop you. Wanna build a nuclear reactor in your garage? Knock yourself out.
Wanna sell your Sender Fratocaster guitars on eBay? Expect a C+D from well paid lawyers
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They do it because in America they can get away with stuff they can’t in Europe.
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Most likely, yes, whereas we´re a European company and just do what we can “get away with” everywhere instead 
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It’s not very clear but always go with the more restricted assumption, which in this specific case is you are probably not allowed unless you are using GeForce. So, switch to that if you’re not using it already.
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Thank you everyone for your replies. I will stop using it. My genuine home i.p address is Northern Ireland where I am from and have lived all my life, Shadow PC’s i.p address is operational from Dunkirk in France. The only reason I ever used Shadow PC was because sometimes I’m too sick to leave my bed and my laptop doesn’t have the correct requirements to allow me to play WoW however it does run Shadow PC which I used to play WoW through on my laptop. I hope I don’t get banned for being honest, I’ve now realised my mistake and I will never use it again. X
Edit to add that Shadow PC doesn’t stream games, it streams an entire gaming PC to your own PC or laptop to use.
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Kinda like that service where people pay monthly sub to use some hardware from elsewhere to run games if they have laptop like yourself that couldnt run too demanding games. Its legit business anyways, the more powerful hardware elsewhere does the work and they play through it using stream access to that pc.
Some can run a bot on another computer and control it via stream services and blizzard anti-cheat softwares cannot detect it, so they ban for the use of the remote software to try prevent it. But I dont think or know if that is of ops case anyways, I dont see such pvp related records that it would make much sense anyway so I doubt it, if they are not pushing r1 with bot programs among the other things some do. I believe op just has laptop that could not run wow well 
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I would advise the OP sees how bad the local experience is and stop using shadow pc. Wow runs on surprising hardware. My partner doesn’t really care about games other than wow and her 12 year old laptop with 8gb ram and no gpu runs the game fine.
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