[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

there's a fairly disturbing trend that seems to make it acceptable for companies to gather information on their customers without the say-so of the customer. Sure, Microsoft and Blizzard may not be collecting the unrelated e-mail and headings of every window you have open on your system, at least not in long term storage, but they're setting the precedent for others to do it.

More importantly, it might be illegal for you to stop them:

It is illegal in U.S. law to actively attempt to circumvent a company's security systems.

Many EULAs authorize licensors to collect a great deal of user information--and the fact that it is done in advance, as a blanket permission and SOMETIMES deliberately buried in the fine print, is lost on a lot of unsuspecting people. Microsoft's EULAs and licensing system is notably invasive and encroaching. If THE POWERS THAT WANNA-BE got to dissect Microsoft someday a la the Ma Bell antitrust breakup scenario and/or the infamous takeover and operation of the old Mustang Ranch by the Feds...Big Brother might just have his IT division in Redmond...thus we must prevent Hillary and her UN ilk from control of such.

[Southack]

"More importantly, it might be illegal for you to stop them: It is illegal in U.S. law to actively attempt to circumvent a company's security systems."

Incorrect. It's not the company's PC, it's yours. You get to do as you will with your own PC (legally speaking).

Now, it's probbaly illegal to hack into WoW's PC's to stop the communication with the software that they installed on your PC...but stopping something on your own PC is a different thing altogether.