Linden Lab Supports Invasion of Your Privacy?
by Alphaville Herald on 25/03/05 at 3:09 am
New friend…. or spy for your girlfriend?
A look at the recent dust-up over detective agencies
By Cienna Samiam
My editor asked me if I would be interested in doing a story about in-world detective agencies. I scanned the forums and noted the several threads [1, 2, 3] on the matter, read Hamlet’s “Mc-Story” and let the matter percolate in the back of my head a few days — to come up with something a bit more meaty than the admittedly scintillating coverage of ‘Lady Knockers gets a guy to cheat’.
I do think there is a story here, but not necessarily about the obvious ‘what they do’, ‘why they do it’, angles. I think the story is in understanding how such a service fits according to ‘Linden Law’ and in looking at if/why/how any such effort is, by definition, a violation of it.
To dissect the matter, it is important to first understand the difference between real world and in-world legalities. In particular, what aspects of the real world hold no sway here? What aspects of ‘Linden Law’ (TOS agreement) supercede the carry-over of real world assumptions and expectation in-world?
In Second Life, there are two types of information — there is your personal account information, and there is in-world information you create and choose to divulge; be it by telling a friend, putting it on a notecard, mentioning it in public, or simply taking actions in public that would support validation by an observer.
With this said, Linden Law directly states that certain in-world actions will be construed by them as invasive. In particular, section 5.1, sub-article ii:
[You shall not] impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a Linden employee, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
This can certainly be construed to cover the ‘honey pot’ stings to uncover infidelity. The target is unaware of the sting in play and has been fully mislead by both the client and the agent as to their purpose and intent.
It can also be considered a violation in that it is an impersonation in literal fashion of who the agent is as well as misrepresentation of their true affiliation (i.e., I am not here to befriend you, I am here to try and trap you).
Then there is sub-article iv:
[You shall not] take any action… that… as determined by Linden at its sole discretion that is harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, causes tort, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable
The important thing to note in the above is the phrase, ‘As determined by Linden at its sole discretion’. The generally accepted translation of this is, ‘Screw the law, if we do not like it, it is wrong.’ But there is also direct coverage in this sub-article of invasion of privacy. What does Linden Law consider ‘private information’? Well, let’s take a look at the Community Standards:
4 Disclosure
Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives.
Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident –including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident’s privacy.
Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.
It is relatively easy to see that a wide variety of the activities an in-world detective agency would consider ‘tools of the trade’ would be considered violations of Linden Law as well as invasions of player privacy. Let’s have a look at the three basic types of investigative scenarios and see where they fall under Linden Law…
(1) The ‘Honey Pot’ Trap
In this scenario, a man or woman is introduced to someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend and then left with him or her to see if they will be unfaithful. The tools used to gather evidence vary from logs, to screenshots, to listening devices.
Analysis: Remote listening, sharing logs without consent (of all involved parties is heavily implied) are both considered invasions of privacy under Linden Law.
(2) The ‘Due Diligence’ Process
In this scenario, the agency is hired to ‘find out’ about a particular player and report to the client on anything from how they do business, to how they are perceived in the world, to whether or not they pay their bills on time, etc.
Analysis: While the information itself might be considered ‘private’, there is no aspect of Linden Law that prohibits investigative inquiry into these areas. So long as remote listening and logs are not utilized, this is on the ‘up and up’.
(3) Real Life Investigation
In this scenario, a player has hired the agency to find out real world personal detail about someone.
Analysis: Obviously this is a violation, on several levels, of Linden Law — stalking, invasion of privacy, etc.
The assumptions of the real world as to given information being ‘public’ and therefore, not protected, do not apply in Second Life — by decree of the Lindens. This is something that most who seek to undertake investigative work in the world, either fail to understand or have not yet learned.
While there is a plethora of ways that a service to locate items or non-invasive due-diligence would be helpful, it is certain that the ways recently discussed are among those prohibited.
The reaction in-world and on-forum has been swift and telling, albeit quieter than expected. Most of the threads dealing with this manner of industry or service, have not gained much notice.
However, when they do, there are consistently two schools of thought:
(1) I like it because I can get information I want about [person X]
(2) I dislike it because it is a TOS violation and it causes me to fear for my own privacy.
Proponents of the first school of thought, this reporter dismisses as being too eager to satisfy their ids, to see the far-reaching consequences of supporting this activity. The world is doomed to repeat history — in most cases due to the people who fall under this category — so I refuse to coddle them here.
The second school is made of amazingly calm dissenters. Perhaps they dissent on a purely ideological or abstract basis but, because it has not actually happened to them yet, do not feel the need to do anything more than ban detective business owners from their stores and land.
There is a third school of thought but it is attended primarily by the blissly unaware — who neither know what is going on, nor care to invest the time to find out (until it bites them on the ass). For my part, they are accorded the same distance they have set between themselves and the rest of the world.
At the end of this analysis, there is only one question remaining – If indeed such activity is wrong (and by all accounts of Linden Law it is), why is it being supported and even glamorized by sensationalistic coverage in Linden Lab’s own paper?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Urizenus
Mar 25th, 2005
wowzers, good analysis. I assume that Hammie and the Lindens are thinking the Private Dick story is the sort of thing that (i) plays into the “we’re just like the real world” meme, and (ii) has the potential to generate some splashy publicity if it gets picked up by wired.com and the other usual suspects. Actually I’m surprised it hasn’t been picked up already (calling Mr. Terdiman). But meanwhile it *is* hard to see that the practice wouldn’t be a clear violation of the TOS etc.
Marsellus Wallace
Mar 25th, 2005
Mafias do this shit all the time (only more effective).. Big deal. Remember, it’s not a crime if you don’t get caught hahaha
Marsellus Wallace
Editor, Gangland News – SLH
mafiaeditor@gmail.com
budka groshomme
Mar 25th, 2005
This also raises the issue of recourse and adjudication. Are the Lindens to forever remain both judge and jury. Clearly they can act when there is a clear violation of the ToS, but not all cases are so clear-cut. In such cases, is there some due process that one should follow? Do we need, like the real world, to build the infrastructure that interprets the ToS (our constitution) and derives rights and privileges therefrom? Is there a need for 2L lawyers, judges, juries and as system of penalties for those acts that are not outright violations of the ToS but are clearly against the common good?
Cienna
Mar 25th, 2005
Marsellus, I know that in ‘gangland’, all ethics and philosophy manages to rise to is ‘don’t get caught’… but for those of us who actually think beyond the moment, or care to look beyond the next score and consider how Second Life is going to look when we’re tired of being ‘gang bangers’ and using accents and language our momma never taught us, there is a little more to things than ‘don’t get caught’.
As hard as that may be for you to believe.
Neal Stewart
Mar 25th, 2005
Personally, I think there is also at least one other school of thought. I support the ‘hands-off’ philosophy that Linden Labs claims to be aiming for in general and do not think that LL should respond to these detective/intel businesses (although I can personally respond!). I’m going to be unpopular for saying this, and you’ll probably be surprised, but I’m inclined to prefer that:
- Remotely monitoring conversations and sharing logs etc is not a punishable offense
- Impersonating persons or entities is not a punishable offense
- Revealing residents’ RL details, should they become known by residents, is also not an offense
This is not because I have a personal interest in these things, they are just what I would prefer to be LL hands-off. I anticipate the, “What if you were the victim, Neal?” objection but I take that one on the chin. I think that residents should be empowered with their own ways to respond to these situations in SL. At the code-level. Obviously there are some situations that residents physically won’t be able to respond to in any meaningful way. Here I think you just have to bite the bullet and list it as a cost of the hands-off approach over paternalism.
Where it gets trickier is sub-article iv:
“[You shall not] take any action… that… as determined by Linden at its sole discretion that is harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, causes tort, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable”
I would say here that threatening RL physical harm should be a bannable offense and of course the proper authorities notified etc. The line is obviously quite vague and tricky though. The others (harassing, vulgar, tort etc) are even harder. I think that Linden Labs should try and pursue a strategy aimed at maximizing free speech while maintaing a strong position legally. What that entails exactly, I simply do not know. My main point though is that I am personally very liberal in terms of what I think LL should allow residents to do in Second Life. So I think that the examples of these detective/intel activities, should not be restricted.
It’s a tricky topic to tackle because it deals with rights at the most basic level. Unless you bring in thought-experiments that lead to Bad Places or you can highlight internal inconsistencies in a position, I’m not sure that there is all that much more that you can say other than, “I believe that we should be allowed to do such and such…”
So that’s what I believe
But it’s 4am and I’m unsure of myself on this issue and might just be playing Devil’s Advocate
Marsellus Wallace
Mar 25th, 2005
Cienna:
I’m sorry, did you have a point?
-Mars
Urizenus
Mar 25th, 2005
Her point is that ‘right’ does not meet ‘didn’t get caught’.
There is another point that she made in the article though, which is that while in-game mafias and quasi-governmental organizations (like the SSG and the Alphaville Government) have been doing under cover operations to gather info forever, the game companies ususally doen’t publish loving portraits of those activities. But, in effect, that happened in this case.
In other words, the point of the article was not, gee look at this new thing happening in the game, but rather “why the hell are the linden’s applauding it in a company sponsored blog.”
Walker Spaight
Mar 25th, 2005
Neal, you might want to take another look at the Community Standards, which expressly forbid a couple of things you say are not an offense:
“Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives. Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident –including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident’s privacy. Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.”
Cienna
Mar 25th, 2005
The only point I had you have more than well made for me, Marsellus.
Thanks!
Neal Stewart
Mar 25th, 2005
Thanks for the comment Walker. Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. I know that those things are currently considered offenses but I do not think they should be.
Walker Spaight
Mar 25th, 2005
OH I see. Sorry. It’s the mean old boss in me coming out, lol.
Buster Peel
Mar 28th, 2005
I think you are reading too much into “as determined by Linden at its sole discretion”. Linden’s lawyers would have ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED them to put that in there, because otherwise petty matters would become arguable. Especially when there are loose words like “offensive” — offensive to who? What would be the adjudication procedure otherwise?
The langauge applies to all matters, not just weighty profound ones. I could claim to be offended by short skirts, for example. Who decides?
That language is not there by choice as a power grab. It could not be any other way.
Mick McAllister
Oct 11th, 2007
I had a SL account for two weekends, and suffered an “invasion of privacy” so irritating that I swore it off. During the workweek between, ZoneAlarm crapped out. It had to be deleted and installed after a Safe Mode checkdsk. My virus checker crapped out. Had to download a new copy. Spybot refused to run through a half dozen reboots, and AdAware announced it was non-functional. Two or three essential DLLs were reported missing during bootup, and my USB drivers disappeared. Eventually I had to do an OS repair to get my house in order. And the USB drivers disappeared again a few days ago, only to reappear on reboot.
Coincidence? Hardly. I might come back after switching to Linux, but under Windows SL is a bit too chummy with my computer for my taste.