Bashiok has issued an alert which is addressed to fellow Fansites and players concerning beta keys. You can’t promote, or advertise links about beta key giveaways in the official forums — if you are a fansite; nor can players giveaway their Invite-A-Friend Beta keys in the forums. Blizzard moderators will swiftly take care of these threads, and might result in a ban. It wasn’t specified if it’s a temp or permanent ban. Either is no good.

Bashiok: We understand that many people would like to be able to give out the extra key they’ve recently received from the Invite-A-Friend emails to other members on the forums. While we certainly appreciate the giving nature and sentiment behind these gestures we’re imposing some guidelines to ensure the safety of our forum goers. These are rules for these forums to ensure that these positive gestures remain positive, and are in the best interest and safety of those interacting on these boards.

  • We’re not allowing contests to be run on the forums to give away keys. Our forums can’t be used as a vehicle for these types of player-run promotions. Doing so will result in thread moderation.
  • Beta keys can never be bought, sold, or traded. Any attempts to do so will result in a permanent ban from the forums, and removal of any current StarCraft II beta access. Information on the overall beta test agreement can be found here: STARCRAFT® II BETA TEST AGREEMENT https://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23329392870&sid=5000
  • Any requests for, or posting of email address/contact information will result in a thread moderation.
  • Links to outside websites promoting contests or key giveaways, with our discretion, will result in thread moderation.

What posters should be aware of:

  • Potential phishing scams intended to acquire account or contact information to obtain access to your accounts.
  • Any and all links on the forums should be approached cautiously and only after careful consideration of account and computer security – https://us.battle.net/security/
  • Battle.net account information is not involved in the Invite-A-Friend promotion and should never be given out.

Again we appreciate the sentiment of giving back to the forum community by those with keys to give, but we need to ensure that they don’t lend themselves to being imitated by scams.