14 DAY TRIAL // Documents that are part of the massive Edward Snowden leak imply that the National Security Agency of the United States has been spying on the Xbox Live service from Microsoft, the World of Warcraft from Blizzard and Second Life since at least 2008.
Information that Engadget quotes suggests that the online services and worlds were targeted because they could serve as ways for terrorist organizations to recruit new members and coordinate activities.
It’s not clear whether the agents sent in to pose as role-playing fans were able to actually catch any evil doers, but at one point, the various agencies involved created a special group to deal with the fact that agents were spying on each other.
Blizzard says that it is not aware of any World of Warcraft-based surveillance and that it has not granted any sort of permission to the NSA, while Linden Labs and Microsoft have not yet commented.
Here are more details from Softpedia about the spying process.