Linden Lab have announced that those who want to open new stores on the Second Life Marketplace will be required to provide payment info on file (PIOF). The move has been warmly received by merchants, many of whom who seem to view it as a beefing up of security.
This will, once one or two teething issues and quirks are ironed out, undoubtedly reduce the amount of throwaway alts used to practice questionable behaviour on the marketplace. Obviously it won’t cut down on all questionable behaviour but it will greatly reduce it and we should see less of the most brazen scams taking place … one would hope!
The blog post states:
“Only newly created accounts will be required to meet this requirement at this time, and existing Merchant accounts will not be affected. However, we strongly recommend that all merchants complete the steps necessary to meet this new requirement.”
If they ever do get around to requiring PIOF for exisitng merchants, I think we’ll see a few more complaints, but as it currently doesn’t seem to have any implications for exisiting merchants, the news has been well received.
When someone tries to create a marketplace store whilst not having PIOF, they receive a message that all the of the conditions have not been met and then further information that they must have payment information on file and agree to the marketplace terms of service.
As this wasn’t my picture exemplifying this, I can’t post it here, but I have seen a picture of the message, honest! The example case was actually from someone who had created the alt account in 2008, so it looks like any alt or account that did not previously have a marketplace store will need to provide PIOF, not just brand new Second Life accounts. That’s a fair move too really and should deal with any potential sleeper accounts.
There will always be edge cases for matters like this and some new people simply won’t be able to participate as a Marketplace merchant because some people simply cannot achieve payment info on file due to the way the world works.
However on the whole this looks like a sensible step, well it will once the quirks and issues are ironed out.
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