Privacy (at least some) should be a Human Right in Second Life, too!

I only learned about SLStats.com yesterday and while it is rare for me to disagree with Torley (see /139/70/127053/1.html) it seems that a lot of residents - including some Lindens - do not fully understand the importance of privacy in the digital domain.

What SLStats is does is

1. collecting personal data about what residents are doing inworld
   
2. publishing this on a public website (it does NOT matter, that this website ist accessible to registered users)

While, according to some Linden statements, this is not against the TOS, doing this in the physical world would be highly illegal in most jurisdictions of the western world. For example: you can not give out spying devices to all of your friends or install them everywhere you go, gather information about other citizens doings, who was where and when, being near to which other citizens and publish this on the internet.

In some jurisdictions the data gathering alone would be illegal, even without the publishing side.

To label this as "statistics" is simply misleading - or malicious PR. This is about publishing personal data without consent of the residents involved. An opt-out functionality does not change this - especially when most of those being spied upon are not even aware of the fact!

"Hey, what the heck? Who is hurt by this? Do you have something to hide, or what?" is a common attitude in these cases and I concede that it is actually the true opinion of some developers of such applications - when professionals do this it is usually something else.

Privacy - and the protection of privacy - is a complicated thing. And it is a huge difference between someone looking up publicly available data on an dozen residents and gathering this data (and possibly correlating it) for thousands of residents with an automated system. Anyone who does not grok this should please try to educate himself about privacy in the digital age please.

And - btw - privacy is for those who want it protected. My privacy can not be given away by others, who "don't care". That there is only a "relative minority of the users that disapprove" is a completely void argument. I wonder if the developer tried to get a representative vote of all residents in SL. I bet that most don't even know that they are spied upon.

But even if a majority of users is all for giving up all privacy (usuall as long until they are bitten themselves) the privacy of the minority, who does not want it invaded, has to be protected.

If the developer wants to gather such data there is a perfectly acceptable way to do this: distribute "watches" that only track those who are wearing it. This would be opt-in - like any respectful system should work that gathers personal data.

As it works now, the watch distributed by SLStats.com is spyware, plain and simple. Spyware is illegal in some jurisdictions, considered bad business practice in most societies. Why is it acceptable in Second Life?

Just to keep things neat and tidy here is another thread on the topic.

/108/d1/127297/1.html

I'd be surprised as hell if you haven't seen it already however.

And I just LOVE the 'Let's diffuse the noise' remark made in the link you provided.

this is not as bad as you make it seem and he has removed names from the sight of those who are not wearing a watch. Those of us that do wear them are fully aware of what it is doing.
since the names have been removed from the sight for those that do not wish three names revealed the discussion is over.

the only persons being tracked are those wearing a tracking watch.

and as Nyx said there has already been a very long discussion on this in another thread

/108/d1/127297/1.html

also did you not read Marks response in the Sl answers thread he has put opt out options in for lots of things.

Opt in is the only respectful solution to this. Many people don't read the forums and don't see this greifing network.

I hadn't seen anything about this, but I have to say I am *not* happy about it.

I don't want my location tracked and logged and made available on a data base for people to see, everytime I bump into someone who's wearing one of these bugs. Nor should I have to reveal to a third party who I am and who my alts are to get removed from this database.

One thing I can say is, that anyone who is wearing one of these tracking bugs is going to be dumped from my friends list and banned from my land.

Before you start a new post, you should look into what you are complaining about. He did not track your location, only people who were wearing the watches. Also, the only thing he collected about people that were not wearing the watches was how much time they were around someone WITH the watches. This is an old issue that has been resolved.

Its not resolved until everyone who did not opt in is removed from the site.

Won't happen, so get over it.

Then its not resolved, and I won't shut up. Get over it.

I'm sorry to say that things are not illegal in RL because you declare them illegal.

a) the census

b) information databases

c) the library

d) mailing address lists

e) google (do a search for your RL address, or phone number, or name... )

and so many more

Its also legal to verbally abuse telemarketers as they called your house.


Guess that means its legal to verbally abuse people tracking us without consent, as they come to our work and do so.

to be honest... yes, i actually do agree with this. I am of the opinion that the people wearing the watches are the ones at fault here. They are the telemarketers.

If you verbally abuse me, I will AR for harassment.

If you come to the club I work at while I'm hosting and I verbally abuse you, its entertainment for the other patrons, not harassment. You sticking around means you choose to remain, thus no harassment.

You can choose to 'opt out' of the verbal abuse entertainment by leaving.

Thanks to everyne who pointed me to the other thread on the topic. It is hard for me to fully appreciate it, as it got a bit longish.

Checking the website of SLstats itself I found the following snippet in the "privacy" policyIf this is still the case, it is hard to say that "the only persons being tracked are those wearing a tracking watch", Aimee. At least this is not my understanding of the text. I read up Mark's letter, which was posted be Torley and I did not find any sentence where he said he was removing the tracking of avatars, who are not wearing a watch.

Should this text be outdated and the watches will really track only those AVs, which are wearing a watch themselves, I apologize for this missunderstanding.

With regard to "but he offers an opt-out". As I have stated in my initial post, gathering of more personal data about a person, then I need for conducting business with this person, is something that any respectable business should always do opt-in and not opt-out.

Comparing data gathering like this with the census, information databases etc. is a bit very farfetched, IMHO.

Please read up a bit on issues of privacy in the context of large scale IT systems, DoubleDown. I am not "declaring" anything illegal. Gathering and storing more personal data, then I need for conducting business with this person, without this persons consent (and being aware of the data gathering) IS illegal in some jurisdictions and considered bad business practice in most others. Opt-in is the way to go.

Its also been proven 30m is enough.

Yeah, and I object to having that information collected. I didn't consent to it, I shouldn't have to "opt out", he should be getting my permission before using my name in his database.

You did when you agreed to the TOS. Even though it is not LL, they can do this if they wanted and give out the results.

I love the misguided interpretation of Torley's text; he's not claiming all of the posts are 'noise,' he's saying that there's a lot of people talking on the issue and the major points should be made known.

Um, no.

I refer to a previous post:

/108/d1/127297/15.html#post1206895

and spammers come to mind even after sleeping on it

Peace

Pham - very well made questions...

We should al ask the same ones and try to imagine what if this can and are allowed to continue, how a life in SL will be like, now or later..

Next version?: Maybe a life where info about more than the SL life will be connected to our ava...

”Human Right in Second Life”

I agree on that one! We need a better help from LL to take care of things like this. AND SL/IRL datas are a delicious thing. I and many more in SL pay for a secure life in SL.. and a totaly secure identity - and I cant do a thing to check that I get that - thats why its important that LL take care of it.

To collect data about people are in most civilized countrys forbidden...it must be the same in SL as well.

I am sure there are more ones than sl stats that have the same kind of ideeas and want to make something similar.. some are probably already up and running but we are not told about them... (scary feeling)... and the only ones that can check/take care of this are.. LL. Its time to wake up!

Please....

And you that uses the watches - burn them.. for your life and our lifes in SL and IRL.


/Tina

Someone posted earlier that there is an "opt out" option therefore "this discussion is over."

Not so fast, buddy.

SLstats.com seems to have no issue whatsoever with the fact they conveniently claim everyone in Second Life has decided by default that they agree to be tracked and have the resulting data logged and distributed to whomever SLstats.com likes.

SLstats.com, what gives you the right to decide I agree with your spyware scheme unless I say otherwise? It should be the other way around.

Even people who are unaware of this so-called 'service' who would object to this were they made aware of it have (according to SLstats.com's practices and 'terms of (dis)service') "agreed" to be tracked.

Worse yet, the 'tracking watch' apparently does not differentiate between avatars whom the extremely inconsiderate wearer has deliberately encountered versus those hapless individuals who just happen to have the misfortune to be within (30m?) of the wearer, whether or not they know them. You could even be sitting in your house on your land behind a closed door and an opaque wall while the spyware-equipped individual strolls by: according to SLstats.com, you've "met" the wearer and agreed by default to let everyone who wants to know this know you have.

As for "opt out," I find the fact the onus is upon me to seek out the creator of SLstats.com and beg him or her to leave me out of their tracking both intrusive and offensive. Were this an "opt in" scheme (meaning "only those who opt in can be tracked) I might express worry over whether it can cause lag but wouldn't raise further objections.

The crux of the matter is this: SLstats.com thinks it's OK to do all this until I say it's not OK. I think that my right to privacy means I say "no!" by default unless and until I say "yes."

SLstats, I find your business practices are unethical, intrusive, and inconsiderate in the extreme. I have never used your products, never will, and therefore do NOT consider myself bound by or in any way in agreement with your so-called terms of service.

I do NOT consent to being tracked and if I find anyone in my vicinity wearing one of your devices I will immediately abuse report them and you.

To be fair you CAN opt out of this by changing your tracking to monitor only those who explicitly "opt in" to your service.

- Arctic Fox

I too am saddened by the fact that Torley somewhat endorsed this (as presented in the answers response).

I felt, that our watermelon loving Linden, just didn't see things through when presented with a highly detailed play of action by this Mark guy. Also Torley might not be familiar with the Opt-out/opt-in debate. Any number of things coupled with the fact that this sort of came to light at weekend (when Lindens take a break), added to this.

I have sent her a msg to check the long thread, so maybe she'd do that sometime today