{"id":3108,"date":"2013-05-07T22:57:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T21:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=3108"},"modified":"2013-05-07T22:57:01","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T21:57:01","slug":"tos-change-as-clear-as-mud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=3108","title":{"rendered":"TOS Change As Clear As Mud"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s much angst around regarding Linden Lab’s updated terms of service and part of that angst has been caused by Linden Lab not being clear about what they claim to be being clear about. The blog post<\/a>, seems straight forward enough:<\/p>\n

“When you log in to the Second Life Viewer today, you\u2019ll be asked to accept an updated Terms of Service. As with any legal document, it\u2019s important to read in its entirety before accepting, but we wanted to highlight one of the changes we\u2019ve made in this update: to better protect Second Life users against fraud, the updated Terms of Service make it clear that trading of Linden dollars (L$) on exchanges other than the LindeX, Second Life\u2019s official L$ exchange, is not authorized or allowed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0As the official exchange owned and operated by Linden Lab, the LindeX is the best place to buy and sell L$ for use in Second Life. It consistently offers the best rates for both buyers and sellers, and by limiting L$ trading to the exchange we operate, we are better able to protect users against fraudulent activity.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

That to me sounds like Linden Lab are limiting trading of Linden Dollars to the Lindex, that the likes of Virwox are not allowed and that if I do trade on Virwox, I’m doing something that is not allowed and in breach of the terms of service. However the relevant section of the new Terms Of Service<\/a> makes no reference whatsoever to trading on third party exchanges being forbidden:<\/p>\n

“5.3 There are other exchanges that are operated by third parties on which Linden dollars are exchanged.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Third party exchanges are not authorized by Linden Lab and Buying or Selling Linden dollars on third party exchanges are not authorized transactions. Third party exchanges are wholly distinct from both the LindeX exchange and Linden Lab and they have no affiliation with Linden Lab. We do not endorse or otherwise guarantee the legitimacy of the Linden dollar transfers offered on them, and we are not liable for purchases of such Linden dollars. Buying or Selling Linden dollars anywhere other than the LindeX is done so solely at your own risk. If you Buy Linden dollars that are traced to unauthorized credit card activity or other fraudulent activity, we will recoup these Linden dollars from your Account. The only authorized exchange is the LindeX.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

This suggests that if I purchase Linden Dollars on a third party exchange, I do so at my own risk, which I always thought was the case anyway, but nowhere does it say it’s not allowed and that is rather an important discrepancy which Linden Lab should be looking to clear up because I don’t want to trade on a third party exchange at my own risk and then find my account is in jeopardy because Linden Lab consider it a breach of the Terms Of Service.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Blog Post seems to have a strange definition of what making things clear comprises of. I’m not happy about this move, the apparent removal of the Risk API and Linden Lab apparently shutting off other means of trading Linden Dollars. There are a few reasons for this.<\/p>\n

I’ve used Virwox in the past and although the exchange rate isn’t as good as the Lindex, the speed of transaction is vastly superior. A speedy transaction does not mean a risk free transaction, even when I get the message from Paypal telling me the payment from Virwox had completed, there was a note that the transaction could be reversed, that’s a standard message. The slow speed of cashing out from Linden Lab is probably the primary reason people like using third party exchanges. When I was playing DIABLO III and cashing out via them, transactions did not take as long as they do from Linden Lab. Linden Lab’s process is extremely slow by pretty much all measures.<\/p>\n

Another reason I like Virwox is because I could play around and see if I could get a better rate if I traded with British Pounds, The Euro or US Dollars, something Linden Lab does not offer.<\/p>\n

There are people, whom for whatever reason, have difficulty buying and selling Linden Dollars on the Lindex, these people use third party exchanges, they may well now be snookered.<\/p>\n

I suspect that this change is aimed at protecting the status of the Linden Dollar as a license to use and that there are legal ramifications going on, these are issues that Linden Lab will not talk about but there are some things Linden Lab can do to ease the burden and the first is to improve the cashing out process, it is extremely slow and there’s no reason for that especially when someone has already cashed out to a Paypal account a few times and they are using the same details.<\/p>\n

Another thing Linden Lab could do is clear up the confusion about whether using third party exchanges is merely done at one’s own risk or is indeed a breach of the terms of service because the latter has more ramifications than the former, if it is a breach of the terms of service a lot of people will be upset, but at least then we all know how the land lies.<\/p>\n

I would imagine that cashing out is going to be slow over the next few weeks as people scramble back to the Lindex from the third party exchanges.<\/p>\n

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