Unfair ban?

Apparently there's some commotion about someone named Lamaagetting banned by Blizzard for botting. Many people have risen to his defense, but I'd hold judgment for now. There's not that much evidence around.

A part of the problem is that the ban was a part of the latest wave of mass bans, so Blizzard's going to be swamped by complaints from both the innocent and the guilty. Lamaa says he's innocent. But both the truly innocent and the guilty would say that. People say that Lamaa would never do such a thing. I don't know Lamaa, these people or their motives, so that means little to me. From personal experience I do know that even people you like and trust can disappoint you. Blizzard does have an appeals process, but whatever department at Blizzard that's handling account suspensions and bans is going to be very busy for the foreseeable future, no matter how much hell Lamaa's blogging friends raise.

There's also been talks about fraud, since Lamaa did pay for a subscription, which he cannot use now. I don't think that appealing to fraud is going to help much. Blizzard can terminate the account at any time:

BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE THE ACCOUNT AT ANY TIME WITH ANY REASON OR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE. For purposes of explanation and not limitation, most account suspensions, terminations and/or deletions are the result of violations of this Terms of Use or the EULA.

If Lamaa agreed to the Terms of Use, he also agreed to that part which says that Blizzard is not required to explain it's actions. End of story.

Well.. not quite. Maybe we should go through one hypothetical scenario: That he did purchase Glider, but didn't use it to powerlevel or farm gold. If he bought it, he probably installed it and started it as well. If Glider was running while WoW was running, Warden would have detected it, because it scans the process list. And as far as Blizzard is concerned, that's enough evidence to ban him:

WHEN RUNNING, THE PROGRAM MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH WORLD OF WARCRAFT. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADDON" OR "MOD," THAT IN BLIZZARD'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY BLIZZARD; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE PROGRAM. IN THE EVENT THAT THE PROGRAM DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, BLIZZARD MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR (b) EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER SECTION 6 OF THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.

It doesn't matter whether he actually used it to powerlevel or farm gold. If he did have Glider running at the same time as WoW, then he did break the terms of use and deserved to be banned. But as I said in the beginning, there's not enough evidence to make that call right now.

The moral of the story? Read those Terms of Use and End User License Agreements. They're not there just for show.