Blizzard has been warning users not to click on links in emails that ask for personal information (such as your username or password) for
years, as have thousands of other companies, security experts, and individuals. Sadly, too many people ignore all of their warnings, and then are surprised when confronted by evidence of the very real problem, or devastated when their WoW (or any other) account is stolen.
My aunt is a perfect example of this. She doesn't run anti-virus or anti-malware software. She doesn't run a firewall. She clicks on every banner ad and popup she sese. She downloads anything she's offered. She clicks on any link that promises free stuff. She enter her personal information on any site that claims to be running a drawing for free stuff. She buys and installs anything they sees adverstied on TV or at a store. She never updates anything that doesn't silently update itself in the background. After the first time and realizing the scope of the problem, I started charging her by the hour to clean up her computer every few months. After I moved to a different state, I wasn't in the least bit surprised to hear that she'd been the victim of identity theft. If she played WoW, she'd have had her account information keylogged and sent to 25 different parties simultaneously.
That said, you should always forward those emails to Blizzard's hacks and piracy team at
[email protected]. I generally report them to PhishTank.com as well, which maintains an open database of known phishing sites that's used by a number of browsers.
You should also be very suspicious of any email from any source that asks you to log into your account, but doesn't address you by name.
Finally, if you're going to log into a secure site, you should always type the URL yourself, or access it from a trusted bookmark, rather than clicking on a link in an email or on a website, even if you think the email/website is legit.
Also, as to the original issue, I have several email addresses set up on my personal domain that I've never used on
any website, and they still get spam, so I don't think it's a failing on WoWI's part.