Advantages of separating adult content

Mirror it on the Teen Grid.

Stroker: "Like, can we have a way to check age verification for our customers?"

M Linden: "No, but we can make you move to a new continent and keep half your customers from being able to find you. Isn't that peachy, hmmmm?"

Stroker: "Wait, wait, what?"

M: "And then I'm going to blow up the Earth, because it obstructs my view of Venus."

Stroker: "How come M Linden is channeling Marvin the Martian?"

No, I am not "Making that up." That was the exact truth the last time I checked, and I *HAVE* checked, because I have a daughter who is now 13 years old, and who has already asked when she can have her own SL account.

I just checked the current process for teen grid sign-up.

The last time I checked, when my daughter was still a year away from being old enough to get an account, they required either a PayPal or a Credit Card account to verify against in order to create a Teen Grid account.

As of right now, the instant you enter an age on the sign-up form that is between the ages of 13 and 17, new fields open on the form. Those include a mandatory real first name and real last name field, and the selection of one of two choices for ID verification: PayPal or "Mobile Phone".

So, if they do the "Mobile Phone" method the way they used to do in 2005, back when I signed up for SL, they bill your mobile phone number for a charge, just like dialing a "Pay to listen" phone service. PayPal works the same as it does for an adult grid account.

Either way, 100% of Teen Grid accounts have a "verified" real name and either PayPal or a mobile phone account that can be billed. So 100% of the teen grid accounts would be capable of meeting the "Account veification" requirement of "Having payment info on file with LL".

"Advantages of separating adult content"

It hadn't occured to me before today but, since moving the main/specialist adult stuff out of the reach of half the population, it could turn out to be a boon for those who sell adult stuff but don't have to move.

It's probably to clean up SL for corporations, lawyers and media with a view to have SL as the 3D internet incuding under 18's on the main area of the grid.

We are seriously thinking of going back to private estate after the move so we can have a Mature sim and an Adult sim next to each other then our shop renters can put their adult stuff on the BDSM-Life adult sim and have a Mature shop as well. That way people can then just cam from the mature sim to the adult to buy the adult stuff and LL have agreed that adult, mature and PG can be mixed and next to each other on private estates

The advantages of seperating adult content is that you can explore SL with kids or your grandparents in the same room.

Maybe LL wants to put Second Life on the XBox

Except that you can't. Most of the unexpected adult content I've run into has been freenis-weilding jerks on PG land.

Which would be like encountering a flasher or a streaker in RL.
The civil administration would reject any accusation that they encouraged/allowed/facilitated this behaviour.

Except that instead of being a rarity, it's common.
But what would granny think?

You probably wouldn't get an answer if you asked "who is responsible for damages when some 15yo attempts to extort L$10K from you after cybering with them on the belief they were an adult" either.

It would be interesting to know what Stroker thinks. He has occasionally posted to topics in these forums, but I haven't seen him on this one.

And if he was one who asked for better controls, then maybe he is getting what he wanted.

We should not assume that everyone will be treated the same as Stroker. Stroker is one of the few poeople who makes enough money in SL business that it would be worth his while to hire a lawyer and sue Linden Lab for fraud and contract violations.

Maybe Linden Lab has anticipated that, identified the few people who might be tempted to sue, and have have given those people special considerations. Stroker may have the red-phone hotline number to Linden Lab and his own Linden genie-in-a-bottle.

I can see the benefit to adult content shopowners of having segregated content. Choosing location and targeting advertising works best when one can identify and focus upon only those people interested in the product. A Red Light District concentrates an adult vendor's potential customers into one place.

The only problem with the change is that the change screws people who have already invested in Second Life, who aren't going to be compensated for the costs of the change to them.

What we don't know is whether Stroker, or other high volume businesses, are getting secret and special consideration for their losses due to the change.

Edit: One other thing crossed my mind. The biggest adult vendors may actually benefit from the forced move. With enough resources, they can weather the inconvenience. With a good enough brand name, relocation won't put as much of a dent in sales. A vast number of small-scale competitors, however, may find themselves wiped out back to zero. So even though a big vendor takes a hit from the move, the vendor may more than recoup it from increased market share due to the elimination of competition.