As Second Life evolves, new issues will arise and the recent rumpus about Redzone is one of those issues. The point with Redzone is that it scans you,without consent, without informing you that you are going to be scanned, there is no mention of what Redzone does with your data, there is no privacy policy with this device and that’s where we get into a bit of a sticky wicket.<\/p>\n
Linden Lab so far have taken no action and to be fair to Linden Lab, how do they incorporate a policy to ban Redzone without making legitimate uses of IP addresses illegal too? Linden Lab move slowly on issues, very slowly, they could of course decide to just ban Redzone as they have in the past banned traffic gaming devices, but without a clear policy, enforcement becomes tricky when the next Redzone arrives. The starting point for Linden Lab’s policy of course lies with the terms of service<\/a>.<\/p>\n Section 8.3 appears to suggest that Redzone breaches the terms of service:<\/p>\n “8.3\tYou agree that you will not post or transmit Content or code that may be harmful, impede other users’ functionality, invade other users’ privacy, or surreptitiously or negatively impact any system or network.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n You agree to respect both the integrity of the Service and the privacy of other users. You will not:<\/em><\/p>\n (i)\tPost or transmit viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer programming routines that may harm the Service or interests or rights of other users, or that may harvest or collect any data or personal information about other users without their consent<\/em>”<\/p>\n Redzone does not seek consent to harvest information, so it seems in clear violation, where they seem to think they have an out is with regards to Linden Lab’s Privacy Policy<\/a>:<\/p>\n “Information Displayed to or Collected By Other Users<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Certain account information is displayed to other users in your Second Life profile, and may be available through automated script calls and application program interfaces. This information includes your account name, account type, the date your account was established, whether or not you are currently online, user rating information, group and partner information, and whether or not you have established a payment account or transaction history with Linden Lab. Further, you agree and understand that Linden Lab does not control and is not responsible for information, privacy or security practices concerning data that you provide to, or that may otherwise be collected by, Second Life users other than Linden Lab. For instance, some services operated by Second Life users may provide content that is accessed through and located on third party (non-Linden Lab) servers that may log IP addresses.<\/em>”<\/p>\n The reason for this is that websites collect IP addresses, they are required for certain features such as media streaming, this policy is explained to try and help people understand that third parties may have access to your data, but it should not trump the terms of service.<\/p>\n However, one issue that stands out here, Linden Lab have a privacy policy, should we have privacy policies inworld? The answer is …oh please don’t, could you imagine that everytime you land at a commercial sim or commercial parcel you have to read and agree to a privacy policy explaining what the parcel owner does with your data? This would be a nightmare and yet, as many commercial sites on the web do, it is probably something that people who are collecting data, should be doing, I’m sure legally there’s some dodgy ground here for not having a privacy policy when you’re collecting data on people, I guess I should have one on my website …damn now see what I’ve started!<\/p>\n The question really is why Linden Lab haven’t banned this product and the answer seems to be that they can’t determine whether it breaches their terms of service or not, or they haven’t yet figured out how to introduce a policy that makes it clear why these products shouldn’t be allowed.<\/p>\n Redzone could of course get around the terms of service issue by seeking consent, on the soon to be nerfed Blogrum, Innula Zenovka makes some fine points<\/a>:<\/p>\n “Second option, zFire continues to allow his customers to ban alts, but doesn’t show the owner who people’s alts are.\u00a0\u00a0 If I am shopping in your store, then whose alt I may or may not be is of no legitimate interest to you that I can see.\u00a0\u00a0 If you ban me, and want to ban my alts, too, then fine.. you don’t need to know the names of the alts who you’re banning, do you?<\/em>”<\/p>\n Now why would Redzone users have a problem with this solution? If, as they claim, Redzone is used to stop griefers and copybotters, then banning one account and all alts without seeing the names of the alts would indeed do what they’re asking for, well it would if the device was always accurate but that’s a different issue. The basic premise of any data collection policy is that information should be fit for purpose, names of alts are not fit for purpose here.<\/p>\n In the same thread, Inara Pey<\/a> gets all rawrrr and commanding whilst pointing out that Redzone does not seek consent, as exemplified here<\/a>:<\/p>\n “When I use the media tools in Second Life, I am giving my implied consent to do just that receive media streams. *Nothing else*. End of story.<\/em><\/p>\n I am most certainly <\/em>not giving consent\u00a0 – implied or formal – for you or anyone else to exploit those media tools in any way <\/em>you happen to see fit and for purposes <\/em>you deem to be both “acceptable” and “above the Terms of Service”. Period.<\/em>”<\/p>\n I’d spank her for using period instead of full stop but she told me off for pointing that out before and you seriously don’t want a telling off from Inara……well sometimes it works!<\/p>\n My personal view is that Redzone should be banned until the device seeks consent to do what it feels it needs to do and yes as I pointed out earlier, having a privacy policy and needing to agree to it before entering sims and parcels would be problematic, but the current state of affairs isn’t acceptable, people are turning off their media settings, missing out on some of the good features of Second Life because of this and the overall world of Second Life is suffering.<\/p>\n As Second Life has evolved we’ve seen issues that Linden Lab have needed to address, Sexual Ageplay, Banks, Gambling, Adult content and now we have privacy and Linden Lab need to address this, I haven’t looked into the technical aspects of what’s happening but some people have suggested that there’s an exploit in the media settings that allows information to be gathered, if this is true then these data gathering services are taking advantage of an exploit and not using the service as intended.<\/p>\n The world evolves, the world changes, but for the sake of doing the right thing, Linden Lab do need to step up to the plate here, I have every sympathy with content creators trying to protect their stores, but evidence suggests that Redzone isn’t that effective, I also have every sympathy with sim owners trying to prevent griefing but when the tools they use to do it operate such questionable practices as Redzone does, then they are not the right tools and are not helping the Second Life experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Second Life evolves, new issues will arise and the recent rumpus about Redzone is one of those issues. The point with Redzone is that it scans you,without consent, without informing you that you are going to be scanned, there is no mention of what Redzone does with your data, there is no privacy policy … <\/p>\n