Report: Blizzard Once Slapped With ‘Misogyny Tax’

An nameless reader quotes a report from Kotaku: A cybersecurity firm whose safety researcher had as soon as been harassed by Blizzard workers at a hacking convention charged the sport developer a 50 p.c “misogyny tax” when it sought a quote for safety providers, based on a brand new report from Waypoint. The researcher, Emily Mitchell, advised Waypoint that she approached the Blizzard sales space throughout the annual Black Hat USA cybersecurity convention in 2015 to see if the most important online game firm had any open positions. Her shirt, which referenced [to] a safety course of often known as “penetration testing,” prompted two unnamed Blizzard workers to ask her questions laced with misogyny and sexual double entendre. “One in all them requested me when was the final time I used to be personally penetrated, if I preferred being penetrated, and the way typically I obtained penetrated,” Mitchell stated. “I used to be livid and felt humiliated, so I took the free swag and left.”

Two years later, Blizzard approached cybersecurity agency Sagitta HPC (now often known as Terahash) to request a quote on one in all Sagitta HPC’s password-cracking packing containers. Mitchell, who was Sagitta HPC’s chief working officer on the time, noticed Blizzard’s request and instantly remembered what occurred at Black Hat USA 2015. After studying of the incident from Mitchell, Sagitta HPC founder and chief govt officer Jeremi M. Gosney responded to Blizzard’s inquiry with a prolonged message decrying her remedy by the hands of Blizzard’s workers. “[R]ather than dismiss you and inform you that we’ll not do enterprise with you, we would like to offer Blizzard the chance to redeem themselves,” Gosney wrote. (He ultimately shared the e-mail on Twitter with Blizzard’s identify redacted.) “We’re dedicated to combating inequality, and I’m calling on Blizzard to do the identical. As you could or could not know, in the present day is Worldwide Ladies’s Day. And in honor of today, we’re attaching a number of situations if Blizzard needs to do enterprise with us.”

These situations included a 50 p.c “misogyny tax” on any enterprise Sagitta HPC did with Blizzard (for use as a donation to 3 totally different organizations dedicated to help women and girls within the tech business), Blizzard turning into a Gold-level sponsor of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Ladies in Computing convention, and a proper letter of apology from Blizzard executives to Mitchell during which they’d additional dedicate themselves to supporting equality for ladies and sexual harassment coaching. […] In 2017, the organizers of Black Hat USA, the Las Vegas hacking convention at which Mitchell was initially accosted, promised her that they might not enable Blizzard again as a sponsor for future occasions. So far as Kotaku can inform from historic info, neither Blizzard nor Activision have had a presence on the cybersecurity occasion because the 12 months Blizzard workers harassed Mitchell. “As soon as this incident was reported to us, the Firm started an investigation, promptly eliminated all unauthorized cameras, and notified the authorities,” Activision Blizzard advised Waypoint. “The authorities carried out a radical investigation, with the total cooperation of the Firm. As quickly because the authorities and Firm recognized the perpetrator, he was terminated for his abhorrent conduct. The Firm supplied disaster counselors to workers, onsite and just about, and elevated safety.”