#21 - March 4, 2011, 3:25 a.m.
We've considered it over the years, more than a few times. But it's always been our feeling that this is one place where limiting legitimate players in such a way would harm their experience far more than the alternative. Logging in for the first time to begin talking, interacting, and engaging in the social aspects of the game, and not being allowed to, would be detrimental to the initial experience. Not to mention the many players that use level 1 characters for various and legitimate tasks. To implement an effective solution we'd be restricting people from talking for likely hours if not days of gameplay (new people tend to level a bit slower).
We have a number of restrictions for trial accounts (
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=21262 ), but as noted by others what you see is likely someone's paid account that is no longer under their own control. We recommend right-clicking on their name in chat and choosing Report as Spam, or reporting them by opening an in-game petition, any time you see that type of behavior.
