The Alphaville Herald

Public Outcry Forces SLStats Change — Or Does It?

by Pixeleen Mistral on 08/08/06 at 9:20 am

by Pixeleen Mistral, Herald National Affairs desk

Big Brother’s watchmaker, Mark Barrett, rides the elephant [Is that like jumping the shark? -- Ed.]

“Avatars in second life aren’t the customers, they’re the content. Google is indexing web content, and SLStats is the bridging adapter between the two worlds,” SLStats developer Mark Barrett told me saturday evening. Unfortunately, some of the content . . . erm avatars? players? people? seem to have their own ideas about the value of the SLStats service.

After the Herald broke this story last thursday, the controversial SLStats avatar surveillance system/database has been getting a chilly reception from some metaverse citizens. The merits of SLStats have been vigorously debated in the SecondLife forums since Friday, as word spread and privacy advocates squared off against the fans of 3rd party data mining. For the privacy advocates, there is plenty at stake if you believe Mr. Barrett’s claims about the size of his database. Mark told me Saturday, “There’s 24k users in the database, 9k have no payinfo, 2,500 have it on file, but not used, 12k have used it.” Will SL’s residents stand for having their aggregate demographics on display like this? Is there a reason they shouldn’t?

SLStats is the latest offering from some enterprising chaps wanting to take avatar fashion in an entirely new direction. These wrist watches both enhance your SL look, and report back to the SLStats.com database the location of the watch wearer, plus any other avatars in the vicinity. For privacy advocates, the SLStats watch is troubling, since it scans and reports ANY avatar in the vicinity, including those who are unaware of the watch’s function. From this information, SLStats.com constructs databases of friends lists based on avatar proximity, lists duration of avatar associations, with other sorts of mass surveillance goodies planned for the future — assuming there is enough data in the database to make it interesting. An eagerness to quickly populate the database seems to have motivated Mark to assume consent from avatars unaware that they were being monitored by his service. Although there is a lot of useful and interesting aggregate information that could be gleaned from such an exercise, this perhaps conflicts with the Linden guidelines on research that requires “informed consent” — though the information Mark is gathering is freely available.

Once word got out, a predictable firestorm in the SL community erupted. Privacy advocates complained about problems such as stalking, RL employers drawing false conclusions from the suspect data, and their unwillingness to share this sort of information with 3rd parties. I was lucky Mark was able to take some time off from fire-fighting to talk to me Saturday evening. I think it was the offer of the elephant ride that lured him in. That elephant is a great icebreaker for interviews, but the problem is that elephants can drink a LOT, and my pachyderm’s tastes run toward Grey Goose vodka, The expense report I’m filing better cover those 5 cases I ordered, or I’m not sure how I’ll make tier this month.

After we hopped onto the elephant for a ride around the sim, Mark relaxed a bit and discussed where he saw SLStats going. He was quite excited about an avatar rating service he is working on, where a watch owner can rate any other avatar and have this entered into the SLStats database to be published and easily Googled. He suggested that this would be a potent anti-griefing tool. Since people can create any number of SL accounts at this point, my elephant was slightly upset by it, until I offered him another drink. I’m hoping this sort of cognitive dissonance does not permanently scar my pet, and that the Herald health care plan covers animal psychological services.

SLStats did not win itself many friends over the weekend, as the opt-out link on the site went missing from the front page, hilariously requiring people to use the watch to log into the site to opt out of using the watch. A fine case of Catch-22. Mark did make an opt-out object available for those who could track it down in-world, but those choosing to opt out of the service were treated to a bewildering series of confirmation screens. Chronic Skronski complained, “I have opted out, and the opt-out box tried to tell me it was dangerous to do so. After clicking on ‘yes’ (I wanted to opt out) a few times, it actually asks ‘are you lying?’ hoping that the frustrated resident will once again click ‘yes’.”

Mark told me he has been contacted by companies who are interested in using his system for data mining and market research, but he has resisted their siren calls, so far. Probably wise, since a bigger database will only improve his return on investment. Unless the Lindens GOM his business model first. In talking with him, it was clear that Mark felt he has Linden Lab’s tacit approval of the monitoring/data gathering operation at SLStats. His contention is that if it is technically possible, he is free to explore the possibilities without too much concern for the moral issues — the excitement of exploration is foremost in his mind. This contention further upset my pet elephant, but I gave the elephant another drink and told him that he can be sure that the Lindens will take care of us.

The controversy continued into Monday, as an open letter to the SLStats owner on the SL forums had over 400 postings by midday. When I was able to use an alt to buy a watch and check SLStats early Monday evening, the number of residents visible in the web site was significantly less than Mark had claimed Saturday — there were only 292 listed. In a posting to the forums Monday evening, Mark said that SLStats has moved to an opt-in only policy. Before privacy advocates feel too smug, they should remember the watch is still scanning and sending the same information as before, but information about non-watch owners is no longer displayed. If we believe Mark’s claim of 24,000 users in his database Saturday night, and assume that there were around 300 active watch users, the potential for mass surveillance is certainly within reach of anyone who can produce a somewhat popular scripted attachment.

The question my pet elephant really wants answered is what (if any) controls Linden Lab will place on 3rd parties, since SLStats is unlikely to be the last case of such data mining. At press time, requests for further clarification on the ethics of this sort of monitoring, and Linden Lab’s position on 3rd party data aggregation and defenses against data mining had not been answered by the Lindens. Until Linden Lab does take a clear position, we can expect to see more systems monitoring your avatar’s actions in SL, with the belief that, “All your tp are belong to us.”