Blizzard says Authenticator lawsuit is “without merit”

Activision-Blizzard (its legal team, most likely) has released a statement in response to last week’s news of a class action lawsuit filed against the company by Benjamin Bell. The suit alleges that Blizzard are “deceptively and unfairly” charging their customers by asking them to purchase a Blizzard Authenticator device (pictured) to ensure the safety of their accounts on Battle.Net, and suggests that the company were deliberately negligent about safety to create a need for said Authenticators.

In a lengthy reply, Blizzard says that the lawsuit is “without merit and filled with patently false information.”

“The suit’s claim that we didn’t properly notify players regarding the August 2012 security breach is not true. Not only did Blizzard act quickly to provide information to the public about the situation, we explained the actions we were taking and let players know how the incident affected them,” the statement reads.

It continues, “The suit also claims that the Battle.net Authenticator is required in order to maintain a minimal level of security on the player’s Battle.net account information that’s stored on Blizzard’s network systems. This claim is also completely untrue and apparently based on a misunderstanding of the Authenticator’s purpose.”

Blizzard insists that the Authenticator is “optional” and offers protection “in the event that their login credentials are compromised outside of Blizzard’s network infrastructure”.

The company states its intention to “vigorously defend ourselves through the appropriate legal channels”.

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Source: IGN