Question about giving out personal info.

Would anyone consider it a violation of the TOS if one SL resident revealed personal information about another SL resident in a private forum that is not affiliated with SL?

Hi, Jade Lily.

In response to your query, I would certainly consider it a violation, as per #4 of the Community Standards aka "Big Six":



From: http://secondlife.com/comstandards.php

From what I understand, if you've not consented to reveal this information yourself, it would be a violation. I suppose there is some flexibility in an instance like mine where I run a blog and openly disclose info about myself at my own leisure, but if such is not the case, then this leeway would likely not apply. There are also cases in which New World Notes has provided personal info beyond what a Resident has stated in his/her/its Profile, but this was probably done with proper journalistic clearance, as I would expect of Hamlet.

Hope this helps.

I'm with Torley on this one...

If I had revealed to you personal information and then you, in turn, were to give it to someone else without my consent or knowledge, I'd be greatly offended, no matter what the means of communicating that information is.

And I'm pretty sure its a TOS violation.

- Ace

Even that excerpt from the Community Standards says that these actions are prohibited within SL and the SL Forums. But this action didn't occur in either of those, therefore it doesn't seem to violate this standard.

It's disrespectfull, possibly illegal (depending on the information, and nature of disclosure), but, the TOS or CS would have no jurisdiction.

<-- Adam Zaius forgetting to switch account, again

-Adam

Regardless of where it sits in the realm of ToS and CS documents, it is, as Ace said, pretty damn rude. However, Linden Lab only has control over their own realm. They did take down a posted link to someone pointing from forums.secondlife to another site that had a alleged transcript of a conversation, but they don't have control over the site it was linked to.

There is a difference between that which is allowed by law or the rules and ethical conduct. Or, merely applying symmetry, if I knew something about you that you didn't want to be disclosed, I could legally do so, but I wouldn't because that would be impolite. - especially if I knew or was pretty certain you didn't want it disclosed. Err on the side of politeness.

Um. From my perspective....curmudgeon that I am. Nothing that happens outside SL SHOULD affect anything here or vice versa as far as this particular issue goes.

The TOS only pertains to SL and what happens ON and WITHIN SL-related/LL-controlled hardware-networks. That DOES include personal computers while connected to the LL-servers - if you want to "stretch" a bit.

But, unfortunately, once no longer connected to SL (or even simultaneously connected to another totally-non-SL-related computer) then, the TOS just do not apply.

Sorry if that doesn't give a perspective that salves the hurt you apparently suffered.

All of the above aside, for someone to take personal information and post it somewhere on the Internet wihtout my consent is THE reason that I rarely give out personal information over the Net. As for legalities, consult an attorney. Ethically/morally - that will vary from person to person and cutlure to culture.

Nah, it's not that big of a deal. No information was revealed that I don't reveal willingly to anyone who wants to know. It was just something I was curious about. ^_^ Thanks for the advice.

depends if they got any animes

Well I think we can look at the purpose of the TOS (to ensure everybody has a good time) and the area of influence the Lindens have (the game itself) to answer the question. The Lindens know that rampant slander and invasion of privacy is going to hurt their gaming community no matter where it occurs, even if outside of SL. It would be their duty to discourage it however possible. Since they have no legal influence on third party site, all they can do is restrict/remove the violator's access to SL in hopes of discouraging the behavior.

TOS wording is centered around "what you do" (even away from SL) rather than "how you use our servers", and we all agree to these rules when we instsall SL.

-aimee

Shhhhh... Jade! You were sworn to secrecy!

Jade,

It definitely is not a TOS violation, but if it was posted on an external site, you should check with the site to see if they will remove it. I have a policy in place on SLUniverse.com specifically about RL personal information and I will remove or edit such posts. Thankfully it has only come up twice in a year for me - the first time, the person who it was posted about asked to have it left there instead of removed, and the second time and the person who wanted to post the information asked me in advance and I told them not to post it. I would imagine most other sites would hopefully have a similar policy with their forums.

*thinks of all the private nasties she could reveal about Juro* hahaha. Don't worry, buddy. I'll never tell.

If private RL information were involved, most states have statutes prohibiting the "Public Disclosure of Private Information." It would be a civil matter, however, and difficult to prosecute.

*wipes sweat from brow*

Whew! Thanks Jade!