Blizzard Sued Over Battle.net Authentication 217
An anonymous reader writes "A man has initiated a class-action suit against Blizzard over a product used to shore up Battle.net security. Benjamin Bell alleges that Blizzard's sale of Authenticators — devices that enable basic two-tier authentication — represents deceptive and unfair additional costs to their basic games. (Blizzard sells the key fob versions for $6.50, and provides a free mobile app as an alternative. Neither are mandatory.) The complaint accuses Blizzard of making $26 million in Authenticator sales. In response, Blizzard made a statement refuting some of the complaint's claims and voicing their intention to 'vigorously defend' themselves."
Re:Free mobile version is free (Score:4, Informative)
They introduced a "restore" feature a while back that allows you to migrate devices without removing two-factor authentication. Basically, you enter the restoration code into the new phone/device and both devices will continue to generate the same seeded code. This can also be used to extend the authenticator to multiple devices like having a smartphone and a tablet both generate the same code. This is just an ease-of-use feature, especially when sometimes you can't find one of the devices you installed your authenticator on.
Authenticator is not a Blizzard product... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:2, Informative)
Shouldn't the $60 purchase price and (possible) $15 monthly fee "help cover postage and pay for the dongle"?
It's not "completely" optional, use of Diablo 3 RMAH requires it and/or the mobile app, and if you don't have a phone that can run the mobile app, then the authenticator is the only way to use an advertised feature of the game.
Blizzard does profit, however little, from the authenticators. Do you really think that they take a loss on them? Or that $6.50 is the magical round number that represents exactly their cost? No, of course not, Blizzard is rounding up to cover their cost (assuming there is no intentional profit margin built in) and they make money from it, period. The real issue though is the fact that they are forcing users to pay for the game's security, profit or no profit. It's a hidden cost of being able to enjoy the product you already paid for.
Re:Authenticator is not a Blizzard product... (Score:4, Informative)
at $26 million, that would be 4,000,000 at 100% margin, which stretches the bounds of credulity.
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
https://encrypted.google.com/search?complete=0&hl=en&source=hp&q=battle.net%20password%20case%20sensitive&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= [google.com]
It's pretty well-documented, including blue posts from Blizz staff.
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
Both the username and the password are converted to uppercase before being SHA-160 hashed and fed into the SRP6 authentication algorithm.
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
If you really want to be correct, income can be either net or gross. Gross income is revenue. Net income is profit. Because he didn't state what kind of income, he's technically still correct. </pedantic>
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually no, i'm wrong. What the hell?