It's a new year and Blizzard has new plans coming to Battle.net. Beginning next week Blizzard will change its guidelines concerning the way it handles parental controls by preventing in-game purchases by default.

Battle.net accounts with parental controls enabled will be unable to make purchases in the World of Warcraft in-game shop, nor make real-money purchases in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft nor make purchases in Diablo III's real-money auction house. No action is needed to keep this default setting and prevent in-game purchases.

In an email scheduled to go out to account holders the company stated the following,

On January 7, 2014 or shortly afterwards, we’re making a change to Battle.net® Parental Controls: a new default setting will prevent in-game purchases for accounts that have Parental Controls turned on. The account will not be able to:

• Make purchases in the World of Warcraft® in-game Shop

• Make real-money purchases in Hearthstone™: Heroes of Warcraft™

• Make purchases in the Diablo® III real-money auction house (note: the auction house will be permanently closed on March 18, 2014)

We’re making this change to ensure that Parental Controls users will have more control over real-money purchases in Blizzard games. No action is needed to keep this default setting and prevent in-game purchases.

To enable in-game purchases for this account:

1. Log in to Battle.net and visit the Retrieve Parental Controls page.

2. Enter your Parental Controls email address.

3. Click the Send Parental Controls Email button.

4. Check your Parental Controls email for a message from Blizzard Entertainment.

5. Click the link under the account user’s name. This will take you to the Parental Controls setup page.

6. Under the Purchase Settings section, check Allow in-game purchases, and click the Save Settings button.

If you’d like to remove Parental Controls from this Battle.net account, visit our Adding and Removing Battle.net Parental Controls support article for detailed instructions. Regarding parental controls,

This update will begin January 7th or "shortly afterward."