I’ve been made aware of a site by the name of Check PvP that shows stats and the like for players. Fair enough, but it also shows whose alts are whose by harvesting data directly from the battle.net API.
Coming from an RP realm, I’m all too aware that abusive players can harass others for the most mundane of reasons and this seems to be a godsend to them, as it can allow them to follow their target from alt to alt. What seems to be the real kicker is that the only way to remove the alt listings of your characters is to create an account on this third party website, thereby giving them more of your information.
Considering the GDPR came into effect two years ago, and that this is essentially someone building a profile of my digital activity that I haven’t consented to, is this addon and this site legal?
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Your best advice would be to direct this query at the ICO (Information Comissioners Office), as they are the ones responsible for policing the GDPR.
But keep in mind, none of the information being harvested or supplied, is “personally idenifiable”, which I believe is a key element of the GDPR.
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I’d still like to get Blizzard’s answer on this though, as the addon can be used to enable harassment via stalking.
But its not Blizzards place to give you legal advice, and that is, essentially, what you are asking for. It’s even in your post, “Is this LEGAL”!.
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edit: seems like the suggestion below does not work with that particular site. No idea what data and how it uses to track the alts if it’s not account wide achievements…
Without going into legal things, you can avoid/prevent most alt tracking by enabling “Display only character achievements to others” option in your character’s options (esc -> interface -> social). It prevents showing achievements in API too.
Note: the setting applies only to the current character so you need to log in and enable it for all your characters (and new ones) for it to be most effective.
Alt tracking generally uses timestamps of different achievements to track which character is whose alt. Eg. if Ben and Jerry both have achievement Curve of Raid Place which they got at the exactly same time you can assume they are from the same account.
Note that it affects all sites which might use that and in-game inspect too. Eg. if you have done Achievement on different char than you are playing others inspecting you won’t see it so they can assume you haven’t done it all.
I do think that Blizzard should offer more controls to players on how the API data is accessed even if it might not be required by the law.
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My thanks for the information! It still doesn’t help that this feature is toggled off by default, but at least it’s a way to counter it. I still don’t think that sites like Check PvP should be allowed to publically display your alt affiliations unless you opt into it though.
There used to be an email address for the legal dept so anything that seemed not quite right could be checked out by them but, despite searching the website, I can’t find it any more …
Maybe there’s someone else who might know it or maybe it doesn’t exist any more.
I just realized that if I use Grelier’s workaround I have to do it manually on all my characters, which means logging into each one and generating data the site and the addon can track. Why isn’t this option account wide and togglable from the login screen?
As I noted in my edit, the method does not seem to work with this particular site anyways. I don’t know how it tracks alts. Remember that if you use the site search for your own alts now the site can use that information, but if you for example haven’t searced alts somebody else who does not know your alts won’t see them unless they both have been scanned either by you or somebody else.
It is kind of stupid that if you want to prevent that kind data given out you need to manually register to each and every site and tell them to hide your alts or such.
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As required by EU law, there is an address you can contact about privacy concerns. It’s privacy@blizzard.com. 
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I think that’s for privacy on Blizzard sites/games rather than external sites but it’s better than nothing 
I didn’t know Blizzard owned CheckPVP.
Oh wait, they don’t. So that address is irrelevant.
Considering it’s their API being used by Check-PvP, I figure they’re the ones to ask in terms of legality.
Check-PvP has a contact form (contact me) on the bottom of their page, and a PayPal account with an attached email address if you click the “Support me” button.
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Thanks Rogmasha, and indeed I did contact them (Check PvP). The reply I got basically told me they harvest data straight from the batle dot net API and that, to quote the site owner: ‘The data displayed on Check PvP is the property of Blizzard. You must have agreed to these terms when you created your account.’
That’s why I’m firing the question off to Blizzard about this, because while getting character data to display stuff like PvP ranking is something I’m sure they’re fine with, the alt listing is something I’m not entirely sure they intended people to be able to do.
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The website is incredibly bassed instead but I can see why certain people have gripes with it (those that host griefers and other undesirables in their own guild) also you will never get MVP
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They hide away, and are afraid people might call them out.
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They don’t need to. The data check-pvp uses is data already made public by Blizzard, so if there is an alleged breach of privacy, it’s at Blizzard as well. There isn’t, but as far as asking anyone about it goes, Blizzard are those that need to be asked.
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GDPR relates to personal real life data.
Knowing that minime the gnome is also Illime the demon hunter has nothing to do with ‘privacy’ because none of it relates to your RL age gender name adress etc etc.
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There have been various sites over the years or plug ins that have identified people’s alts. I don’t think there is any privacy issue when it comes to listing alts. It’s not personal private information, it’s character names in a game. Most sites will allow you to hide alts but you need to know the sites, register with them and do the necessary.
I haven’t used Check PvP before but it is most certainly not aware of the bulk of my alts and can only find one 
While this is getting bit offtopic I personally consider characters to be personal information as it can be used to identify (in some cases at least - in case of Check PvP it needs to scan both your character and the alt and it doesn’t do active scanning from what I see so if nobody has scanned your alts it won’t find them) what other characters the player might play, when he or she has played them (achievement timestamps etc) among other things.
I doubt there are any decisions yet made by authoriteries but players can always send suggestions to Blizzard for further privacy controls for WoW. Overwatch already has option to keep the profile private (private, friends only, public) and by default it opts to private.
Though I guess slightl difference is that the WoW API focuses on characters while Overwatch and other “modern” Blizzard games use Battlenet user ID. Personally I don’t see a difference at this point.
I believe Blizzard already made some changes to API terms where sites can only store data for 30 days or something, though I haven’t read or followed that really closely as I don’t develop anything using the said APIs.