VPNOverview has been tracking privacy policies and has criticised Wizards of the Coast’s policy.
The ease of reading, the lack of plain English, is so bad in Wizards of the Coast’s documentation that VPNOverview suggests readers would need a college student level of education to understand. Wizards’ policy covers gamers from 13 and up.
There’s also concern around Wizards of the Coast’s video policies, as the company does not say how long any video data is kept.
If that sounds bad for Wizards, it puts them 58 out of 100 for the worst privacy policies to read.
| Rank (Overall) | Domain | Type | Reading Level | Difficulty | Words per Sentence | Syllables per Word | Overall Readability score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 58 | Wizards of the Coast | Gaming | College | Difficult | 18.74 | 1.72 | 33.66 |
VPNOverview told Geek Native;
Wizards Of The Coast ranked worse than the gaming console Playstation in this study, revealing that this privacy policy is unreadable for users without the reading level of a college student despite users only having to be 13 to play the game. The privacy policy got a readability score of 33.66 and has on average 18 words per sentence.
VPNOverview has some general observations from their research in general.
- 60%+ of the policies studied needed a college-graduate reading level or higher, and this is due to the amount and format of information.
- The average U.K. reading level is 9, and the average U.S. reading age is 14. Most of these policies are difficult for the typical person to understand.
- Most privacy policies are imprecise, making it difficult to know what will happen to your data. The vague language might protect a firm from legal action if data is disclosed.
- Many companies gather data that seems irrelevant. Spotify collects voice data, for example.
Wizards of the Coast’s privacy policy applies to D&D Beyond and other online services such as Magic: Arena. There’s also a disclosure on their Magic sites to say that Wizards, like Geek Native, earn affiliate commissions on Amazon and Best Buy sales.
A surprise villain in the research is Disney+, which has a short but dense privacy policy. Streaming platforms, as a whole, could do better.
| Rank (Streamers) | Domain | Type | Reading Level | Difficulty | Words per Sentence | Syllables per Word | Overall Readability score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Disney+ | Streaming service | College Grad | Very Difficult | 46.15 | 1.86 | 2.8 |
| 2 | Netflix | Streaming service | College Grad | Very Difficult | 25.63 | 1.86 | 23.7 |
| 3 | Spotify | Streaming service | College Grad | Very Difficult | 19.84 | 1.91 | 25.0 |
| 4 | Sky | Streaming service | College Grad | Very Difficult | 25.32 | 1.79 | 29.71 |
| 5 | Imdb | Streaming service | College | Difficult | 18.34 | 1.87 | 30.05 |
| 6 | Youtube | Streaming service | College | Difficult | 17.91 | 1.87 | 30.64 |
| 7 | Hulu | Streaming service | College | Difficult | 20.54 | 1.82 | 32.28 |
| 8 | ITV | Streaming service | College | Difficult | 23.6 | 1.74 | 35.62 |
| 9 | BBC | Streaming service | College | Difficult | 18.29 | 1.71 | 43.2 |
| 10 | Apple Tv+ | Streaming service | College | Difficult | 22.11 | 1.67 | 43.43 |
Quick Links
- VPNOverview: Research data (PDF Link) | Summary.
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