Under 18 yr Kids being Escorts and Strippers for Lindens

I work for Cingular and I have sold phones to parents who get their 6 yr olds cellphones and from what I have seen since the 'New and Improved' no acct verification came into play, 16 yr olds on the main grid is the least of our worries. There are much much younger kids getting on SL, but hey as long as our numbers keep going up to present the image that hundreds of thousands of people are on SL, it's all good right Phillip?

yeah i have to say my daughter got her first cell phone at 10.. sorry but true folks :/

I agree with you Hypatia Callisto. I do think that LL is unable to keep up with the flood. That is why many will see a delay between the time the turn them in, till the time it acutally happens. I imagine there is a lot

and there will be kids no matter what.. but making it harder to get on, well hinder the majority of them, and that is what you want to do..

you don't use it for age verification. You use it for people to pay for SL People who pay for SL need to be the person they claim to be and fill out the form correctly. If they lie on the form about their age, the information with the CC merely helps verify general identity to help ban the person permanently, or transfer them to the teen grid, which requires payment information.

Cingular!

Damn it, I come to Second Life to get AWAY from Cingular!

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. It's all rather frightening.

The new policy sucks.

Linden Labs will spend more on lawyers if this goes bad then they will be making in Linden Dollar sales.

If credit cards are illegal for age verification, then make it a requirement to enter the M grid (thereby making it an optional thing only if you opt to go to the M areas). At least that is a step.

Linden Labs is not concerned about this. If they were it would have been changed already. Like other companies that grow, they are blinded by what is on the other side of the hill. Forgetting to cut the weeds and maintain this side. Look at Wal-Mart as an example.. they fight law suits every day because they disregard responsibility in favor of making another buck.

I have said elsewhere I think it is nuts to allow such easy access. No matter if you agree or disagree we all know that lawyers will eventually get in the mix. Someone somewhere is gonna have the oppurtunity (founded or not) to cry foul and see if they can make some money off the Lindens. That alone should be motivation enough for LL to do something responsible.

How does this effect you? Well, lawyers dont come free. When they start spending time and money to fight legal battles where are they gonna make up some of the difference? From the consumer of course.

Actually, Damien has a fair point. If you're cybering with someone online and they represent themselves as being over 18, it would be extremely hard for any judge to convict you if it turned out they were lying.

Conversely, I saw a news article recently where a Citizens' group was using a girl who was over 18 but looked 13. She was representing herself as being 13 years old, and they were logging the chats she had with older men who STILL wanted to meet her after she told them she was 13. She wasn't really 13, but guess what happened to those perps when the logs went to the FBI and a meet was set up?

At least the cellphone verification frees you, the user from blame in lawsuits regarding 'sexual contact of a minor.'

He may have a fair point, but i do believe it is stated the adult is the resonspible party regardless.

If I ask them their age and they claim they're 19 or 20, what more am I supposed to do? (Assuming I really wanted to type sexual fantasies into a chat room with someone instead of meeting them offline)

Doesn't matter, as an adult you are the responsible party and should be able to tell the difference.

(no joke.. lol)

Hope to hell they aren't blowing smoke up your digi-buns

Last time I checked prostitution in general was illegal. So it doesn't really matter if the person you are paying to have sex with you is an adult or a minor, the FBI could still go after you either way. Just paying for sex is enough of a crime.

I find it amusing that the OP thinks it's “f-ing gross” to hire a prostitute that is 16 (which, btw, is the legal age of consent in a lot of places) , but doesn't mind hiring an adult prostitute at all. Frankly they both strike me as “f-ing gross”.

We could fill up the jails with this! Get a child to pretend it's adult, send a picture of an adult and say it's them. Never ever mention it's a child, wait for something sexual to to be said, then wham! lock the other party up.

Show me a case of someone successfully sent to jail for talking to a child in an over 18's only chat who continually said it was 18 and NEVER once hinted or admitted it was underage and I will take your word on this. It would be interesting to know if there's a precedent of this, I've not been aware of any cases in my country apart from 'internet grooming' where the person clearly knows the child is underage so is obviously guilty.

kk, it'll take me some time, i'll attempt it

If it's true, a kid smart enough to do this, will be a millionaire due to all the blackmail money it will be able to acquire.

At the going rate of $1,000L, we're talking about roughly a $2.85 transaction. The FBI ought to be all over that

Visa and Mastercard can't make it "illegal" to use a credit card for age verification. In fact, Congress made requiring a credit card one of the few affirmative defenses for an online site violating the (now enjoined) Child Online Protection Act. See COPA, Sec. 231(c)(1)(A). http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/copa.html

So the U.S. Congress seems to think credit cards are useful in screening for age, even as everyone agrees that they're far from perfect. Yes, Visa and Mastercard tell merchants that they can't rely solely on CCs for age verification, and they likewise discourage merchants from using CCs to verify checks, but neither Visa nor Mastercard is a legislature. Visa and Mastercard are not themselves capable of making anything "illegal," except insofar as they can place conditions in their contracts with merchants.

As for new age-verification processes, there are many new systems in development, some of which rely on SSNs, some on photo IDs, some on other government-issued documents verifying age. See, e.g., http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Editorial&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=245109

Finally, someone earlier posted that it's "illegal" for minors to make contracts. That's incorrect. Minors can enter into contracts; it's just that their contracts for "non-necessaries" are voidable by them unless they "ratify" them upon reaching majority. Presumably any minor's contract in an online metaverse is not a "necessary" and thus is voidable by the minor (but not by the adult). Minors' contracts for "necessaries" are never voidable.

OK, Illegal to them, not to the law... but since they both allow a person the get a card at age 16 (at least they used to... I had mine at 16, but that was a long time ago), it's not exactly a good test to see if someone's 18, is it?

its still 16, cause i tried.. ack don't ask -.-

Er... I hadn't seen it in the thread, but where is the legal snag?

If you try to hook up with someone iRL that you met here, then yeah, there's a major risk. If you're dumb enough to go get some action from someone without knowing who they are, that's the risk you take, tough luck.

But virtual diddling? What's the crime? Hiring 'escorts' isn't solicitation (or pandering), if you're doing it with a real or RP'ed sibling it's not incest, and if you're in a state with sodomy laws, you aren't breaking the laws by getting freaky. Because you didn't really get any! So the worst you could be stuck with by trolling jailbait is displaying pornography to them. Hardly sensational.

This link sheds some light as to what the FBI thinks of the topic. I will be calling them when I am not at work to inquire about this situation.

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm

As I said, a credit card is far from perfect, but it's better than nothing. My point is that the Congress regards a credit card as an acceptable means of age verification.

That judgment isn't entirely irrational. Banks and credit-card companies can't collect on debts incurred by minors on their cards for non-necessaries. (Yes, issuers routinely do solicit minors to submit applications, but the avowed purpose is to induce those people to apply when they turn 18.) And yes, credit cards can be issued to minors if a parent co-signs, but at least this requires some parental involvement. As for a kid who steals or borrows dad's card just to get an account, that will only work if nothing is charged. If the kid uses it, the kid will have to answer to dad. Most credit card users are adults.

Unquestionably, alternative age-verification tools are needed. I don't dispute that. But for now, the Congress seems to regard a credit card as an acceptable age-verification tool.

I wonder if Congress knows about SL.