Age Verification - 6th Circuit says unconstitutional.

There is a world of difference between 7 and 15.

I have two teenagers 16 and 15. I would never blame a web hosting company for giving them access they committed fraud to get.

I would never blame people who used that web hosting company to host their content for letting my children see the content with the access they committed fraud to get.

I prefer parental responsibilty because I would rather not have the government running my kid's lives.

But lets say Age verification on the internet is absolutely necessary because of adult content.

Any age solution for the net needs to be bigger than one relatively obscure website that 9 million people signed up for and a couple hundred thousand participate in.

Is like trying to fix 1000 shattered bottles with one piece of duct tape.

something some people seem to forget is that LL also has to deal with laws in other countries, not just those in the states...

*eyeroll*

Yeah, who can forget it, after the VAT debacle??

There is a broader point being made - if it ultimately comes down to age verification being unconstitutional, it may be a sliver of hope that the IDV system would be modified or abolished, because SL follows the laws of the country it's based in, as well as the other countries that it is accessible in. Stop stirring up the nationalistic bullshit. We've had enough of that.

I doubt it since the original law drew little attention when signed by Bush as an amendment to the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act. In addition, it stalled with little fanfare during the commentary timeframe.

This was a very limited and specific rule aimed at verifiying the age of actors in adult videos online and other porn sites that feature the depiction of sex acts by live actors.

Am I the only one that believes that "age" verification really has nothing to do with age? IMHO, this is just a way to put a real name to an avatar, so when the FBI, RIAA, or whoever else comes knocking they can just pass on the identity.

After all, kids aren't allowed in SL at all, anyway, so why would there need to be verified vs non-verified status. That's just a formal acknowledgment that people who aren't verified are possibly underaged, and their terms of use are just suggestions of use...

The first question that comes to mind here is... why are you so against giving your name? Are you into illegal activity and copyright infringement? You would need to provide your name, address, and billing information to Blizzard Entertainment to access World of Warcraft, and that doesn't have adult content. Why should it be different for SL?

I am not in favor of full blown ID verification such as giving my social security number, but I am not against providing the same information I have in the past for games like DAoC, WoW, EQ2, etc etc etc.

I will not, however, give my Social Security Number under any circumstances.

How do you know kids aren't in SL? There is no age verification system currently, and back before I took my break from SL (for about a year) there were instances of kids getting caught on the grid.

Terms of use are not suggestions. The TOS and EULA are legally binding documents in the US. In lawsuits against people who were illegally emulating servers for some of the MMO's out there, various rulings declared that those documents are indeed binding.

For all intents and purposes, it would make sense for LL to keep kids off the grid. As minors, they are not bound to any contract they subscribe to, so the argument could be made that the TOS doesn't apply to them in a legal sense, as minors cannot engage in contracts here in the US. While they can enforce whatever rules they want, there would be no legal recourse for most victims of any "scam" put forth by a minor.

I don't think anyone who engages in pixel-love would want to be on the receiving end of a legal investigation accusing them of being an "online sexual predator" because they have been engaging in "pixel-love" with a minor. Without age verification, how would you know? There are enough people in SL who like the digi-luv for me to wonder why people are so against making sure those they are "with" aren't going to get them sued or worse.

I would also like to point out the number of cases world wide, where adults have used the internet to attract children to prey on. It's more and more common as time goes on. How do you battle that without putting some sort of check in place? Hmmm?

Here is a case that is much more important: ACLU v. Gonzales, earlier this year.

"... a federal judge struck down the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 federal law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to allow children access to "harmful" material ... Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. said he was forced to conclude that the law violates the First Amendment ... The crux of Reed's reasoning in striking down the law was that there are less-restrictive means available for protecting children than a criminal statute ... Parents, Reed said, can protect their children through software filters and other means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech."

(This from www.law.com)

The upshot of this is that, legally, it is the duty of PARENTS to prevent their children seeing unsuitable material online, NOT the duty of the website operators.

So this is case law precedent that LL is not responsible if children access the grid under false pretences and view adult material.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

In the United States... they also have to comply with laws of other countries. It may be easier for them to simply enact a method of age verification across the grid to make it easier to manage for them.

Additionally... perhaps someone at LL decided that while age verification is not mandatory in the US, some corporate responsibility never hurt anyone.

If the age verification system was actually any good, you'd have a point. However it's not, it's a streaming pile of rubbish.

Interesting then that it was LL that decided to let people in Unverified in the first place after 3 years of using Credit card verifcation.

So we are going to have all observe the laws of Saudi Arabia? Come on ...



Quite obviously, LL's plans ARE hurting a lot of people, or we wouldn't all be making such a fuss about it.

And in the end it may end up hurting LL the most.

No... LL will if they wish to do business there. LL *MAY* decide to impose a rule grid wide if it is easier for them. They can do that... they own SL.

How are you being hurt? If you could explain to me why verifying your age is hurting you, perhaps I will feel differently.

I agree the IDV system being implimented is crap... read my sig... but I do not see ANY issue with providing the same information to LL that I would have to provide to any other online game/platform I wish to use.

People really need to stop associating my support for age verification with the IDV system. It's not the same damned thing.

Maybe they have realized that unverified accounts are responsible for most of the griefing/scamming in SL? Who knows?

Did anyone actually see that LL pushed the IDV as something about trust. Age was secondary its all about trust hehe

I have been inworld almost 4 years, owned islands nearly as long. They wheeled out this "trust" thingy that I dislike. I can trust my own judgement not some IDV that tells me nothing.

As far as age? I agreed that I was over 18 when I joined. Now, my money was trusted then and I have no need to get IDV. It proves nothing. I suspect all those under 18 in SL will be verified

Which is information they have already been given. Do other online games ask for anything besides Name, address, DOB, email and CC number? I 've never signed up for anything of the sort, so I wouldn't know. What's the standard?

My understanding is that those who use the forums have provided that information already. Which is why many people are asking why they have to provide information to someone else, who then claims that they can verify we're over 18, even though the additional information they ask for, would not in any way, shape or form stand up as a legitimate form of identification.

I would really appreciate it if someone could explain why people have such a hard time with the idea of age verification. It would seem to me that keeping kids off the grid would be important to most of you, considering what some of you are up to...

I do not want an invasive "ID verification" system... but that's not what I am talking about... though it seems a few of you just can't seem to grasp that. I am discussing a method to verify the age of the person accessing the grid. Of course it would never be foolproof, but anything is better than nothing at all.

If there was a system being proposed that would do that, then I doubt people would be complaining about it. However there isn't. Indeed existing systems (Payment info used) are actually better than the system LL are working with.

Griefing would be the grid's most over-hyped problem. If people would stop reporting every idiot with a cage gun that they could have froze/ejected and then banned ... LL would have more time to concentrate on the grid attacks, which is the griefing that is not controllable by land owners.

Some of the biggest scams have all but been endorsed by LL at one point or another. Though I'm sure you are right about debit permission type scams being largely unverified alts.


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I think the reason they are adding verification is pressure from various sources that share your opinion that they aren't doing enough to keep minors off the grid.

After the German Age Play Scandal these accusations were leveled at SL. Even though no one involved in that expose was underage.

That, and concern over litigation I think are their primary motivators on the current Age Verification plan.

I think the Identity Verification is a required part of it from their standpoint since you have to have an identity to go back to if for some reason the age verification fails.

Such as a 14 year old gets in trouble over something in SL, his parents sue .. LL hides behind Aristotle, Aristotle provides the Identity Verification information that the 12 year old did in fact provide information that he was his father living at x adresss with y birthdate.

Additional reasons for required Identity Information will be when they allow adults and teens to mingle on a merged grid. Similiar to when MySpace banned all account holders who were on the sex offender's lists, And then later provided their idenitity information at the request of authorities.

This is where the misunderstanding comes in... I do not like the IDV system either. I am not looking for ID verification. I am in support of age verification. I am not interested in giving my information to a 3rd party to be used for ID theft.

I DO NOT WANT IDV EITHER.

As are the vast majority of people who post here, indeed many of those who pay LL a membership fee believe they already have age verified. The fact that the goalposts are being moved is where the problem lies.

There isn't an age verification system available that meets the needs of the internet. No "not in person" system can meet those needs.

I agree with you here. Cage guns are annoying, but they are relatively harmless. And the grid attacks are definitely more serious than that.

I was more speaking about the debit scams than the larger scale and more "out in the open" type issues like ginko.

You are probably correct.

I can't say I am unhappy that SL got into hot water over that... and I am glad that sexual age-play is banned. I don't care if it is simulated child porn, or actual child porn... if it looks like it... it is.

Again, you are probably right. Though the idea that someone at LL may have grown some sense of responsibility was my optimism kicking in.

I have no issue providing my name, address, phone number, and credit card information to LL. I would have to do that with WoW, EQ2, DAoC, or any other MMO to access their platform. Why not LL too?

LL is making a mistake using a 3rd party for ID verification. They should handle it in-house... especially if they want to talk about trust.

They are going to have to turn SL into Disneyland if they are going to ever let kids into the main grid.

I can understand that. But I also understand the importance of trying to keep kids away from the adult content in SL. I also would think people who are into the naughty would want to keep the kids out too (do any of you really want to poseball a minor?). And I want to keep the "World of Warcraft" mentality out of SL, as that will do NOTHING for the community.

There isn't a law enforcement agency that meets the needs of the streets either... but we still want them around to do what they can.

If you had the Internet growing up--then you're not very old today. LOL