Activision Blizzard is a video-game publisher (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush via King) that joined Microsoft as a wholly owned subsidiary in October 2023, per Microsoft's own 10-K. Its privacy policy discloses a broad Information-collection design covering account data, device/advertising IDs, and cross-platform linkage with Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Steam and Battle.net, and states the company may sell or share certain information with business and advertising partners and opts users into targeted advertising by default where permitted. Its Call of Duty Mobile App Store privacy label explicitly declares a 'Data Used to Track You' category (Purchases, Location, Contact Info, User Content, Identifiers, Usage Data), corroborating third-party ad-tracking exposure. No FTC or state-AG action or breach disclosure specific to Activision Blizzard's own privacy practices, and no named-firm security audit, was found in this research at draft time; unrelated 2023-era FTC/EEOC/California matters concerning the company were not privacy-focused and are excluded here.
TRACK RECORD
1 BREACH
[2022-12-04] · BREACH
Have I Been Pwned lists a breach record for Activision Blizzard: "Activision".
Activision's privacy policy states that when a user links a third-party account (Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Steam, or Battle.net) to their Activision account, the company collects and combines information such as the username or User ID associated with that third-party account; the same policy separately discloses that Activision collects, processes and/or combines information about use of its properties, including websites visited before and after use of a Property, browser type and language, IP address, hardware/software information, and advertising ID.
The Call of Duty: Mobile App Store listing names the app's Seller as 'Activision Publishing, Inc.,' corroborating the operating-subsidiary name within the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard corporate family.
Microsoft's FY2024 Form 10-K states that Activision Blizzard, Inc. joined Microsoft in October 2023, confirming the acquisition as completed (not pending) and establishing Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) as the parent entity in a mandatory public filing.
Activision's privacy policy self-declares under CCPA-style language that it 'may sell or share certain information to third parties including our business partners and advertising partners,' and separately states that, where allowed under applicable law, Activision 'may opt you into targeted advertising by default,' with advertising partners permitted to combine shared information with data collected elsewhere.
The Call of Duty: Mobile App Store privacy label separately declares a 'Third-Party Advertising' purpose covering Location (Coarse Location), Identifiers (Device ID), Usage Data and Advertising Data — data used to serve or measure third-party ads, corroborating the sale/share disclosure in the privacy policy.
The privacy policy states Activision has 'a special need to protect the personal information of children' and urges parents to instruct children not to share real names, addresses or phone numbers; no COPPA order, FTC settlement, breach disclosure or named-firm audit specific to Activision Blizzard's data practices was located from a primary source in this research.
The Call of Duty: Mobile App Store privacy label declares a 'Data Used to Track You' category covering Purchases, Location, Contact Info, User Content, Identifiers and Usage Data — Apple's category for data used to track the user across apps and websites owned by other companies.