Then, IIRC, we’d meet the confirmer with our electronic sig, show our photo ID, probably have to sign a paper to show our written signature matched our ID signature, then they’d confirm us. NOTHING WAS ENTERED INTO AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE.

If there was a kiosk near me that allowed us to sign in under our SL account, then we could show our photo ID, sign a paper for signature comparison (which we’d keep afterwards), then the confirmer could verify our SL account, I’d pay for it.

But NO WAY would I hand over my personal info to be stored in an electronic database! It’s bad enough those databases are sold to marketing creeps, but even worse when a database is hacked, or some moron employee loses a laptop, or an outsourced employee sells the database.

I’ve provided personal info online for very important things like submitting my taxes, or renewing my professional license, but SL is not important enough for me to hand over my personal data. I don’t do cyber in SL, so it’s not going to happen, and if they force it, bye bye SL, onto another metaverse that’s not so creepy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6638331.stm

Second Life is being investigated by German police following allegations that some members are trading child abuse images in the online world.

The investigation follows a report by a German TV news programme which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children.

The police are now trying to identify the Second Life members involved.

Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors.

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If a large number of places are flagged due to the owner worrying about liability for the actions on their property of individual avs, most of SL will be flagged and most people will verify to retain access. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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That is wishful (?) thinking. Far wiser and perhaps more likely is most of SL gets flagged as adult, the residents choose not to place themselves overtly and explicitly in the Perv Database, and businesses shut down. Then tier doesn’t get paid. LL gross revenue shrinks and their headcount will have to follow.

LL needs to sit down and think this through and just back away from the concept of restricting access of current members. Frankly, from a strictly business numbers perspective, they could probably lose less money by simply declaring that there will be no sexual or violent content allowed anywhere on the grid. Anywhere. In total. The whole grid will be PG and they will police it.

That would be horrible and offensive to all, but that would probably be a numerically superior solution to allowing the content, restricting it, and forcing residents to compromise their RL lives. People are just not going to do that. LL are going to lose a lot of tier money and premium money in either case. I suspect the squeaky clean path loses less.

Is there a solution for them that doesn’t cost them enormous revenue? Sure. They could strengthen the TOS and say more extensively, and more loudly, that kids are not allowed on and their parents are responsible for their kids if they do get on. And then fund a team of 2-3 Lindens to patrol the grid looking for child porn or ageplay. Remember, it doesn’t matter if the measures work. All that matters is that it looks like they made a good faith effort that they can present to a judge. If someone challenges them and says that it is not adequate, their rebuttal is that it is more than most PG places do and they are setting a new standard in the industry.

Remember, always, it doesn’t have to work. It just has to look good in court.

As for divorce lawyers, I would be surprised if they did not know you do SL with an unregistered account unless you managed to keep it really secret (why?? the lawyer asks) from your spouse. The client is on your computer and probably appears as an icon.

Then there is the US social security number. If they are comparing it to a data base, they already must have the last 4 digits of it, or it would not be useful. LINDEN NEEDS TO CLARIFY THIS, but think the process they are using is more like the public library. You check out a book, it appears on the library record, you return the book, the record is erased, permanently. The FBI got a surprise when they went fishing for library records and were told they had no way of telling who had checked out a book in the past. If they are validating via a computer data base, you put in the data, the data base matches it and spits out a validation code. No record of anything is kept, the data is compared with the data base and a match code is all that is issued.

One of the most important issues is what parcels will be flagged mature? My thought is that if you have a large mall you have 2 choices, get rid of the BDSM shop, or make the whole mall mature. It will be interesting to see which way the mall owners go. Obviously places like Eventide will probably rate the whole sim and be done with it. If a large number of places are flagged due to the owner worrying about liability for the actions on their property of individual avs, most of SL will be flagged and most people will verify to retain access. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Hey Nacon, how bout you learn to read ya fucktard? They couldn’t go to the teen grid unless they got verified. Now take your own advice and shut yer goddamn yap, every stupid ass snarky post you make just further proves that you’re not nearly as smart as you wish you were. Fucking A just STFU already.

Nice try, but no cookie. Integrity on their website say that the “Process takes under 5 seconds to complete from the time information is submitted.” So this is manual faxing, is it? This is all handled by manual entry? Um.. no. The information is submitted in a form Integrity requires, and is automatically checked against the databases they have access to in order to use a form of “credit scoring” method to reach a yay or nay answer. It’s done by computer, in seconds – it’s automatic, and it falls within the laws for automatic transactions as they’re given in the document.

And once again, you’re cherry picking the parts that you can form YOUR argument over, without bothering to answer the other parts of the argument. Yet again (how many times is this?) you’ve ignored MY main sticking point which is that soon it will NOT be optional because the optional system won’t work. And again, your arguments are flawed. I could, if I wished, use a neighbour down the road’s name that I happened to know, and Linden Labs would be none the wiser, save that (if I even bothered to put it on file) the credit card name would be different to the name they were given. So your argument about their “ton of blackmail information” doesn’t hold water, because there’s no way – at present – of them knowing they’ve got the right person to flag all that copious “blackmail information” against.

Incidentally, where did you get the idea that it’s being faxed? Since you never site YOUR sources, other than the vast mind of Prokofy (TM), I’m interested to see where the idea of documents being faxed comes from.

“it was given voluntarily under terms that in fact specified it would not be stored or sold so there’s a limit to your complaining about it.” you sneer yet again, ignoring the probability that soon information given won’t be voluntary, and also that it will be stored for technical reasons if no other for longer than they would like us to believe. And again, you haven’t bothered to address the concept that if one resident is under suspicion, laws could be used to require the ENTIRE database to be retained. There’s a mailing list. And, as I’m sure you’ve heard me mention before, where there’s a mailing list there’s going to be someone who wants a copy of it.

“And you’ll only be doing that if you need to go to explicitly sexual sites in SL. Oh, you do? Well, ok” you sneer, again totally ignoring that if it does become a mandatory part when they find it doesn’t work on an optional basis, adult themes aren’t going to matter… it will be everyone, regardless of their sexual tastes, who is required to hand over these details.

Hmm, come to think about it, it’s interesting that you have such an obsession with sexual activity in SL that you should judge others in that way… but I digress.

Let me put it in terms that even YOU should be able to understand.

My distrust over the whole thing spans from the fact that I CANNOT see this remaining a voluntary procedure indefinitely. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I can’t see it being voluntary in six months time. Once they’ve got the facility, the temptation will be there to cover their asses by using it across the board. Once it’s there, it’s there, and the temptation to widen the scope of its use is also there. Now, do you understand this or should I take you back to the beginning of this paragraph? Once you’ve grasped this very simple concept I can go on to say that when it does come in on a voluntary basis, I will remain in Second Life and simply choose not to use it, and I won’t miss the areas I can’t go into for one second. BUT, whenever down the line it STOPS being voluntary and becomes mandatory – then I’ll leave Second Life, as will a lot of people. Now, have you finally grasped what I’m saying? This isn’t going to stay optional.

I seriously don’t think any country is going to be bothered trying to enforce their laws on Linden Labs. In fact, Linden Labs are going to continue down this slippery slope until they reach oblivion. If you cared for Second Life the way you pretend to, you’d be worried that Linden Labs was sounding its death toll for the grid with this too. Optional? Tolerable. Let those who want to, sign up. Mandatory? We’re outta here.

Yep, they sure do. And they pay $300/hour to a lawyer or lawyers, plural, each at $300/hour, to do so. I don’t personally envision the ACLU showing up to take on these legal fees to protect someone from a background check when applying for a job as teacher when the background check is looking for evidence that someone arranged for entrance into an ageplay venue.

Nor do I see the ACLU showing up to fund legal fees in a divorce proceeding.

In the US, when you have to get a lawyer for anything, you’ve already lost. You are going to be analogously fined . . . at least the amount of legal fees.

Dave, it’s about money. A divorce atty could indeed investigate with subpoena and discover you are a premium at Second Life, and if SL becomes publicly tarred with the “home of ageplay” brush, you’re right, that in and of itself would cost you tens of thousands of dollars in divorce settlement adjustment. But so far it’s not. So far there is non adult content that you can “hide behind” as a legitimate reason to be a member of SL.

But you lose that cover with this new Perv Database that ppl are being asked to put themselves in. In it, there is no place to hide. If you do it, you are labeled. Forever.