Blizzard Entertainment considers any third-party program that is designed to affect the way the user interacts with Battle.net a hack program. This includes seemingly harmless third-party utilities that work with the game to provide functions that were not included by the game designers. While many of these utilities might not have been created to disrupt the balance of the game, they alter the original design of the program. The detection of any such program by Battle.net may result in the closure of the user's account or even the temporary or permanent banning of the associated CD-Key.

Blizzard is especially focused on removing hack programs created with cheating in mind, but as mentioned above, using third-party programs designed to make things easier also puts the user\ufffds account and/or CD key at risk. As part of our strict anti-hacking policy, this is our best way to ensure that play on Battle.net is equal for everyone. There are no exceptions to this policy.

Many Hack Programs Contain Hidden Trojan Programs Although the majority of Battle.net players enjoy playing fairly, there are still many who are looking for an unfair advantage. These players\ufffd desire to win at all costs has resulted in the creation of many hack programs. Hack programs violate the Battle.net Terms of Service, and just in the past few months, thousands of players who have used them have been banned from Battle.net.

A number of additional accounts and CD Keys have been tied to the use of a hack or cheat program while playing StarCraft, Diablo II, or Warcraft III on Battle.net. In keeping with our aggressive stance against cheating, we have permanently closed 276,000 StarCraft accounts, 86,000 Diablo II accounts, and 41,000 Warcraft III accounts. We have documented all of the CD Keys that were used with these accounts. 14,000 Warcraft III CD Keys have been banned from ladder play for one month and 2,000 CD Keys are banned from ladder play permanently. Repeat offenders risk having their CD Keys disabled, which will result in the permanent removal of the respective copy of StarCraft, Diablo II, or Warcraft III from Battle.net.