Just to clear something up, today’s tales from ambleside at the Robin Linden office hour, Robin Linden emphatically denied she was about to become CEO and indeed went further and said she will never be CEO.
This arose after some mischief making from me when I said we were awaiting Robin being crowned CEO and someone congratulated her. So, in case I’m quoted out of context anywhere else and to ensure there are no dirty rumours:
Robin Linden will not be CEO.
I should point out that these meetings are discussions, they aren’t policy making meetings and none of what was discussed should be taken to mean LL are going to implement any of these features.
Right, now moving on to the crux of the discussion we were talking about content theft. Procedures for DMCA, external websites pulling data from within SL and this moved onto a discussion of estate owners being allowed to collect data on other avatars, identifying people by voice and a bizarre suggestion that your fingerprints change.
Some of these suggestions scare me. There are all sorts of legal issues with collecting data on other users. Laws vary from country to country and even state to state. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to wade through the legal minefield of the European data protection act and privacy laws by collating data on other users.
In some ways it suggests that amateur hour in Second Life is coming to an end and that business is going to have to abide by grown up rules. Some of this may be enforced anyway if tax authorities get their head around Second Life and look at inworld transactions.
Currently it’s generally only transactions that take place out of the world that attract the attention of tax authorities (although I’m not sure about Australia) VAT is going to be interesting in a few months when people wail that they’ve been hit with a VAT bill because putting their VAT number into Second Life is not enough to exempt them from VAT responsibilities. The supplies are VAT exempt, there’s nothing to pass on. Some people are in for a bit of a shock.
However eventually the taxman may decide to look at inworld transactions and if they do, well it’s going to have some serious implications on the data that business needs to record. Along with recording data come privacy laws. In Europe for example data needs to be fit for purpose and should be only kept for as long as it is required.
Which brings us to the point of what data should be shared. Whereas some look at facebook and the RL information available there and hold it up as a good example of people losing their anonymity on the web, others have criticised facebook, said that it’s dangerous to make such information freely available and warned of identity theft.
Should estate owners have the ability to block access by IP address? Websites can so in reality this shouldn’t be an issue, but any information on a user should stop right there. The estate owner shouldn’t have access to anything more than a profile name, they sure as hell shouldn’t be able to gain access to someone’s RL details. Only legal authorities should be able to prise that sort of information out of Linden Lab. I don’t care if there’s a dispute about content theft, let the legal authorities do that part of the job, I’d be extremely concerned if LL were sharing such information willy nilly.
Then there’s the issue of anonymous accounts. The argument being that the anonymous account lends itself to content theft. I found it interesting that the discussion turned to features such as voice identity systems, nobody at the meeting mentioned Integrity Aristotle and their sham of an identity system. However it’s certainly ironic that people who complain of content theft are also apparently reluctant to provide their RL details. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
However how do we go from protecting anonymity to a situation whereby people need to be held responsible for their actions. I arrived in SL after the floodgates were opened. I would not have signed up had Integrity Aristotle been at the door asking for details. Although I would have signed up if credit card authentication had been required. I think the first thing LL need to be doing is pointing out that lying about your details when you signup is a breach of the terms of service.
I can feel a snowball effect starting on people using their RL names. There is definitely a feeling that this will encourage people to act more responsibly, yet at the same time there is a strong suggestion that many people will run for the hills. There needs to be a balance between RL information and allowing people the freedom to explore without having someone track them down.