Did Linden Already Sign a Contract with Integrity???

Leave me alone about morality. I'm looking at my nice shiny new compass. Now if only someone tells me what to do it with.

It is not a moral stance LL are taking. It is covering their regulatory ass. As L$ can be traded in and out of SL for real $ it makes it a potential vehicle for money laundering. This money laundering could be carried out by new or existing accounts hence, why in time, we will all be verified.

I agree that it is more of a finanacial matter for the reasons you suggest as well as the untaxed income going out of the world. but it is being foisted on us as a "Protect the Children", keep minors out, blah blah blah.

Your implication therefore is that LL are lying to us about verification being voluntary? I'd call that morally repugnant too .... but I didn't say they were lying

I'm just amazed that they can to all intents and purposes try and say they have a level of trust to charge people memberships and tier fees but then say that level of trust is eroded with regard to certain inworld activities. It simply doesn't add up.

It is and I think LL have misjudged the response they would get from residents, well us residents on the forum anyway, about thier “response” to all the dirty little things happening in SL that so disturb us.



mmm...am I saying they are lying…I don't think I would put it as strong as that, but if one of the reasons they are introducing verification is to meet their Know Your Customer obligations then they will need to verify us all.



Paying membership/tier fees and transferring thousands of dollars in and out of SL are total different things. I don’t think it comes as a coincidence after a visit from the FBI that verification is being introduced. Trust is not being eroded, I just think that LL are beginning to realise that there are a number of RL regulations that impact upon the activities taking place in SL.

There is no such thing as coincidence in any case where you see an overnight shift from long-term stasis to sudden rapid movement. Especially not within a company that is not showing strong evidence at this point of having done effective long-term strategy analyses to deal with many customer-base related issues, at least some of which were totally foreseeable, yet remaining effectively unaddressed and practically unresolved.

My only uncertainty about this idea is that I can't see a direct contributory role for SL as a money-laundering vehicle, per se. Since the money becomes "washed" at the point where it becomes electronic, I'd think that PayPal and the CC company fulfill that role, without any complicity on SL's part. I DO see it as a readily accessible avenue for undocumented/unverifiable transfers of large sums V.V. "payoffs", "seed money for terrorism", you pick your catch-phrase from the 6 oclock news...

The FBI were investigating gambling weren't they? However transferring money in and out is done via methods outside of SL. I'm not sure exactly how transferring money out works but I'm assuming people use paypal accounts for this. This is an issue for paypal or banks, not LL.

Whereas I can see where you're coming from, I'm not buying it until LL are consistent on the matter of trust and trusting someone whilst it suits their interests is eroding trust on the wider scale.

I first hypothesised that this was the main reason for this in a couple of threads. The main one being here: /341/ff/184606/1.html



I will agree I have not thoroughly thought through how to launder money via SL, not had any need to use this facility

I will consider it more fully and reply when I am more knowledgeable on money transfer via Sl. However I invite anyone else out there to think how this could be done, if it can be done.

Hehehe, should we be careful not to go far down this road, lest any of us later be portrayed as having conspired to do so?

hehe I don't know enough about it either so we can agree on something! Hooray!

If it's Microsoft, us mac users might as well cancel our accounts and pack up
Microsoft has NO mac programmers
SL will become windows only to save Microsoft money, if it's yahoo we are no better, Yahoo puts more focus on windows platforms. if what your saying is true, us mac users are screwed. as is linux.

My Lindens (wouldn't spend 3 real cents on this one, too risky) are with Yahoo...knee-jerk said Google, but they seem to already be light years ahead of this...

A serious question for all of us to consider...is the functional server platform/network the valuable commodity, here, or is it the Second Life virtuality? I'm sure you see the implications of my question...