This is an area FF14 utterly fails in. What does it matter to have rules that say "Stalking is bad and you should report it to a GM" when the game's friend list is built to give all the power to abusers and not a lot to victims?
Unfriending someone is not a two way road. It should completely be a two way road. Right now, even if you unfriend someone and put them on your blacklist, they still have you on their friends list, which gives them all the benefits of being friends that help them to stalk and harass, including:
A. That helpful orange name bar text that stands out like a sore thumb even in crowded area.
B. Login status and in game location.
C. The ability to teleport to their in game house and FC estate.
You know how you stop the worst of in game harassers? Stop giving them the tools they need to make their jobs so easy! If I blacklist someone, that should remove me completely from their friends list and make me persona non grata to them, everywhere! I don't want to see them in my party finder matchmaking, I don't want them anywhere.
My FC is currently dealing with a situation that is kinda spiraling out of control and I'm trying to do research to find solutions, and FF14 just does not understand privacy controls at all. For that matter, we should be able to hide our Lodestone profile completely because that is yet another way for people to harass others.
What is the worst is, you don't know how bad these privacy controls are until they are needed and you realize how bad this has been made.
I'm just saying, it would make the GMs' jobs easier if the game's social systems had these functions built in. We have an infinitely customizable UI but we can't hide ourselves from people we do not want to see.
Furthermore, if this is an issue that GMs have to deal with, constantly, then their managers should make note of that and pass it up the food chain so it can be dealt with by a change in the game itself.