slstats is kewl and Mark should at least get a change to work this out!

Take a look at the website SLStats.com.

Despite having never given any permission of any type for my information to appear on this site, I do so along with hundreds of other users.

Whilst I expect your answer to be that I should take it up with the site owner, is this not an invasion of our privacy and in direct contradiction to the "Disclosure" clause of the Community Standards?

I can understand those that choose to wear the device appearing on there - but I do not feel that this information of where you go, who you talk to etc should be available to another user. A number of Lindens also show up in the "Search". It appears that the system is "opt in unless you choose to tell us otherwise" - which is not acceptable, especially if you don't even know you are on it.

Any thoughts?

Lewis

Can you believe this website SLStats.com?

Despite using methods available to anyone in-game to retrieve freely available information on other residents, this information is being shared with other people!

Considering that anyone can currently make a completely anonymous MG account and use said methods to retrieve said information, is there any information acquired in-game that can be legitimately called 'private?'

According to the Community Standards..

How dare they disclose information that can be disclosed!

I understand that this information if freely available to any SL user who comes across me, but I don't think this should be available to other users (ack contradiction *writhe* *spasm*)! I think other users should shut their mouths outside of SL! Why is this allowed?! Rrrrg!

On a serious note, I feel bad for the guy running SLStats. He's going to keep getting all sorts of cruel and misguided hatemail for trying to make something interesting and fun.

I don't care if this info is readily available on the in-game search plus database lookup, but SLStats.com has no authorization from me to put my name there.

I have contacted the site owner about the matter but I would like to see LL do something about this.

I agree with Lewis Nerd’s concerns and sent an email expressing them to Mark Barrett. Here is his email in response to mine. Hopefully, it will put some of our concerns to rest.

Jen

Hello Jennifer,

First of all, thank you very much for the email. Obviously (at least I hope it's obvious) I'm not looking to cast anybody in a bad light or assist in on-going abuse or [insert any other negative aspect potentially resulting from or assisted by SLStats].

My stance on this (and I hope this is acceptable to you -- if not, please please contact me with your thoughts, ideas, complaints, and threats) the following:

If someone is using the SLStats watch, then they're willingly participating, but of course someone may want to track their online time only and not who their friends are. I'm adding a mechanism to give users the ability to not display their friends list.

That, of course, is great for users. What about the other residents that are innocent bystanders and featured on somebody's profile or friends list without having been asked? I will add an opt-out mechanism that will allow people to remove their name from this site. They will then no longer have their profile published, no longer appear on anybody's friends list, etc. I hope that this is an acceptable solution and I'm contacting the Lindens for their input on this as well. So far the reception of SLStats has been overwhelmingly positive, but I do want to allow anybody who would like to remain private, anonymous or simply not have their info (which, with exception of the friends list, is publicly available on their SL Profile anyway -- just to point that out) posted on SLStats.com to be able to remove their info.

I put the implementation of opt-out and hiding the friends list at the top of my to-do list and am looking to have it put in by the end of today.I do work full-time and won't get around to actually work on this until 7ish EST tonight, however. In the meantime I'll just have to watch the hate-mail come in. I also posted a brief response on the slstats blog.

If you have any other input, please let me know. I do prefer people contacting me so any potential issues can be taken care of before publicly screaming bloody murder.

I don't know how out-of-hand this whole thing is going to get today before I actually get the chance to implement a solution tonight. I can't really access the forums or anything besides my gmail account from work, but somehow I have the feeling I'm going to have plenty of material to read throughout the day.

You have my permissions to post this email in case you engage in any of the discussions going on in the forums, and again, thanks for letting me know about this.

Kind regards,

Mark

What appears on SLStats is not only a sort of friends list but "who you meet." I found out I was listed on the site under "residents <name> has met" and I was not on that person's friend list.

Also, I am not a subscriber yet I was able to see everything. No login necessary.

Before more peeps go in here complaining about slstats:

slstats is kewl too and Mark Barret should at least get a change to work this out.

He is not a bad dude. He worked hard to implement stuff we wanted and now is working harder to "fix" the nagging.

Privacy is an issue indeed, but I dont think its so bad as ppl claim it to be here.

Hey just my two cents

Type and read you later!

Does Linden Labs consider large-scale automated collection and publishing of information about SL avatars an activity that enhances or detracts from the user experience?

Does Linden Labs see any potential for abuse by 3rd party services maintaining public searchable databases of avatar behaviors/associations on web sites not bound by the Linden Labs terms of service?

Does Linden Labs have any problem with the Mark Barrett/SLStats.com assumption that we all want to be monitored and analyzed on his site?

Is it reasonable to expect people who do not want to be part of this "service" to somehow discover the it, and find a way to opt out?

Merged.

Let's diffuse the noise and get to the key points here:


* If you haven't already, please do forum searches dating several years back about similar privacy concerns involving Resident-run databases. By far and large, they were unfounded, and due to a misunderstanding of the technology involved. Having someone's UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) is *not* the same as knowing personal and private info about them, such as their credit card number. Far from it.

* Mark Barrett has been openly communicative about his work on SLstats to myself and others. Is it really so hard to ask Mark first to gain a better understanding, since... he made it? ^.^

* As you already know, Mark says making an OPT-OUT choice. I've been keeping in touch with him about this, and will be certain to let him know if anything he does is in violation of the Community Standards. So far, I've seen no evidence of this.


I hope this makes things more comfy. Let's look at the positives: I am seeing incredible progress in social networking from Resident-run sites. While privacy concerns are important, it's also important not to let them detract from good people coming together and doing great things.

In addition, I've asked Mark that should he wish to post a statement on here, that he can do it through me and I'll be certain it gets heard.

Can you imagine what this looks like in hindsight? *big smile*

[UPDATE] Mark Barrett wanted me to post this:

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First of all, a sincere Thank You, Lewis, for bringing the issue to everybody's attention. I've been wanting to get some general and critical feedback on the site beyond just feature suggestions in order to be able to address any concerns people might have. I was concerned at first that there would be much revolting. Someone was nice enough to contact my by email this morning letting me know about your post, but I was (and still am) stuck at work, unable to do much about anything until I get home later tonight.

Needless to say, productivity is at an all time low. I was biting my nails, my eyes are constantly on the email notification, just waiting for the impending doom while wondering whether I'd end up in the cornfield when I try to log in tonight.

Jennifer was nice enough to post my email message on behalf of me (Thank you!) so you're probably already aware of the planned update to add an opt-out feature.

But just to kind of explain a bit more in detail: I've received 4 emails over the course of the last 8 hours from people asking me to remove them from slstats.com. That's not a problem at all. Let me get home, and I'll take care of it. And some people are probably wondering what this is all about anyway, so let me take this time to clarify the issues and defuse the situation.

http://slstats.com/"]SLStats.com[/url] has a free wrist watch (attachment) that Second Life residents can wear. When they do, it takes note of how long they've been online and where they are at. That info is then presented on their http://slstats.com/user/view/Mark+Barrett"]slstats profile page[/url]. The watch also looks for people that are within chat range. The really cool aspect of this is that it allows you to build sort of an organic friends list just by spending time with someone. That way you can build social networks, meet friends' friends, and eventually do a lot of cool stuff automagically whereas on other sites like friendster or myspace you normally always have to fill out forms.

When I put it together, it was just an idea in its infancy and it's been evolving ever since. Many changes have been implemented to make it work better, and a number of user visible changes have been made, such as http://slstats.com/blog/"]blogging[/url] and ratings, with many more to follow.

An oversight on my part was to neglect to think about people who would prefer to remain anonymous for any reason or no reason. But consider this: if you're not using the watch, the information on your SLStats.com profile doesn't contain all that much. It shows your birthdate, ratings, and whether or not you have payment info on file. All of which can be obtained by anybody by simply looking at your Second Life Profile. The only other information available is which SLStats users you crossed paths with. So there's nothing really of value on there.

Female Second Lifers are probably more sensitive to these issues; stalking, harassing and other types of abuse are very much a concern for me, but I wasn't aware of it happening or being so prevalent. I am definitely not just shrugging something like that off, because it does affect real people's real lives, no matter how "virtual" it may appear to be.

There are usually two reactions to SLStats, the one is "Wow, so cool." and just total acceptance, usually by users who love technology and new things. The other reaction is "Oh my God, my info is out there for EVERYBODY TO SEE" followed by a minor heart attack. This is usually coming from people who are less familiar with technology. They don't understand what is happening and just see that there are things going on that they don't (appear to) have any control over, and that can be scary. Particularly if there have been negative experiences in the past that amplify those feelings. Very valid concerns, I totally understand and respect that.

So what's happening here is that in a Linden Lab'esque fashion (no development process, radical changes and random results I had an idea and decided to implement it. And it's not something I just came up with over night.

I don't know whether most people listen to the Town Halls and SecondCast.com episodes, etc., but Philip Linden, for instance, and many other well known residents in the Second Life community are indicating that there will be more and more of a shift towards community-based and resident-managed tools in place, in particular when it comes to topics such as griefers, or copyright infringement regarding textures or other user created content. All extremely sensitive issues.

What I'm really trying to do is basically take in all those ideas and predictions and see if I can't play with it.Such as laying the foundation of what essentially is going to be a community owned and regulated system using the potential of peer-review to hopefully allow residents to do really cool things. For starters, if you look at the positive side of that automagic friends lists -- you don't really have to do anything. It's an organic way of saying "These are my friends I hang out with" that builds itself. And now it's apparent that it needs improvements and some checks and balances to curb abuse as much as possible, such as an opt-out mechanism. So if someone opts out, they will no longer show up on the site. Or at the very least will just have a blank profile with next to no data in it.

Another feature is that you can rate people. Philip Linden sometimes talks about that "Love Machine" they have at Linden Lab (reference used without permission ). I guess it's an internal system they use to send feedback to each other like "Thanks for helping me fix this bug", and it builds a history, a reputation, all in a positive way. I added something similar to SLStats.com, too. So when I wear the watch, you can actually rate other avatars. I could say "/rate Philip Linden love Thank you so much for implementing rounded corners." and it'll add that rating to his slstats profile, the comment to his history, and give him points. What for? Don't know, but it's there.

And there will probably be issues with that as well. Spamming, rating with garbage comments, people rating themselves through their alts, etc. And maybe it's just a really bad idea (so far only had positive feedback on this, though) but hey, I'll try it out and see what happens. And the question, again, is how to handle people who dont want to be on there. Someone rates them and then what? If they get notified that they've been rated, do they consider that spam? So many issues, so little time. But somehow someone's gotta tackle those issues.

But anyway, I'm trying to build these things so they can be useful in a positive way, and if someone has a complaint, I am more than willing to listen to that and address their concerns by explaining and showing them how it works or even changing the way things work in the best possible way to hopefully help give them peace of mind.

And finally, by all means, keep the feedback coming. Anything from L$ donations, compliments, general goodness, complaints and threats is welcome. Although we may want to have a discussion in a forum where people can actually reply.

Thank you,

Mark Barrett
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