I was surprised, and suggested that surely this is promoting some sort of fraud.
This sparked a bit of a debate - is selling WoW gold fraud?
My view is that they are claiming to do something which can't be done without the breaching contract with WoW.
Reading the T&Cs again, it looks like selling WoW gold is the breach of T&Cs not buying it, though I a may be wrong there and it may be both. That said, you cannot get what you pay for when you buy WoW gold as there is no actual transfer of title to the virtual gold. So surely someone "selling" WoW gold is being fraudulant? Are they?
Even so, it is clearly a dodgy business, so surprised facebook promote it.
Might be worth asking the ASA what they think of it. I think it falls within their remit.
ReplyDeleteThey're selling a product they don't own.. but it falls into a grey area as there's no physical product so 'receiving stolen goods' doesn't cover it.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you buy from them you stand a good chance of losing your WoW account.. but that's the only sanction.
I'm no fan of gold sellers, it spoils the game for all.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, is a service that is selling the proceeds of broken T&C's committing fraud? I do not think so.
The gold sellers are exchanging money for a digital representation on Blizzards servers. There is no fraud between buyer and seller, while there is a broken contract between seller and Blizzard (which is a civil issue).
Terrible analogy time.
If you, as an ISP, have T&C's say that I may not use my line to host services and then I host a mail service for customers.
I'm selling bits, I'm breaking your T&C's. Fraud though? Where?
Sadly it's not even as clear cut as that as a some of Gold sellers tend to either use Hacked accounts or accounts bought with stolen credit cards to farm the gold.
ReplyDeleteDragon: True :) , I was rather basing my argument on a "legitimate" gold farming operation (if there is such a thing, one that operated by paying for accounts and paying the farmers more than slave labour wages in their area), rather than one that does break criminal law in one or more fashion.
ReplyDeleteObviously using stolen credit cards and/or hacking accounts are criminal rather than T&C issues, which is what Rev's original post was about. If an operation is criminal then naturally advertising on Facebook is about as dodgy as offering any other service derived from criminal proceeds.
Anybody needing to buy gold nowadays needs to be examined by a doctor. Or maybe a Priest? ;)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, inflation in Cataclysm means that barely minimal effort is all that is required to amass a virtual fortune.