Is there a limit to the number of accounts per person?

None of the above is necessarily unique for a family on a home network, using one credit card for all and a common home phone. Even the external IP address is the same at our home, especially as all but one computer in our case is open to anyone's use. I will probably set up two accounts on the home web for email for all the SL stuff, so even that is only as unique as we choose to make it.

Face it - it is all arbitrary and subject to the whims of LL. And I had two LL system objections overridden by making a phone call to LL customer service before exiting the final screen of the old sign on.

Sadly Alts and Bots are often the same thing.

Some of us suggested separate account types for bots from the beginning but .. no one that mattered cared.

At one point, LL did not allow basic accounts to create an alt (without lying). I don't know how they knew it was me trying to make an alt but it was disallowed. I didn't do anything to try to hide what I was doing; used the same computer (different IP though; laptop, on different network at the time). Didn't provide any ID info but they still disallowed it. Must have been info stored on my computer, limiting to one basic account per computer (or computer login). Either that, or they identified me based on typing signature recognition! ( )

However, some time later they changed their policy, and since then I've been able to create alt accounts easily (giving same name and CC# for all). I think my status for all my accounts is "payment info on file", using the same CC for all accounts but never using CC for anything.

I believe their policy has changed a few times. Note that anything you see on the info base might be out of date. However, the quote above seems to reflect what is currently in effect.

cookies

I'm glad to see that they've finally updated the knowledge base, but the reality still seems really arbitrary to me. I have four accounts with my RL information and the same email address. They will not allow me to add another. I have been denied the ability to make "legitimate" alts twice in the past few months, and the second time I even gave a different email address. The only way I can make an alt now is to lie. And I'm not comfortable with that, since LL can and will freeze your account if they find out.

Within the last week I tried to make an alt beause I noticed the last name "Magic" and wanted a little Magic of my own

I provided all my real information, including my regular email address that all my long standing pre-6/6/06 alts (3 of them) and my main account here share, you know, trying to be an honest person and provide truthful information. I have in the past had a 5th alt associated with this email address, tho I do not at this time.

I was denied being allowed to create the account with a note stateing that "this email address is already being used by a Second Life member" or some such.

Like Wildefire, now, my only option to create an alt account is to lie.

Pretty phucked up if you ask me.

Nope - I got referrals for myself.

Are you saying that you couldn't make another alt with a different address? Or that using another address is lying? If the second, I disagree strongly.

In my case, the same information is used, the only the e-mail is different. Same credit card, address, etc. Different e-mail. Since I am using a e-mail tied to that specific alt, I'm lying? Just because I do not want to have my regular e-mail filled up with three copies of the same 800 Forum hangout group notices about the same event (three, as in me, Sonia and Sid; see, I am not even lying about the alts).

Ok, that is odd. Even with a different e-mail? How do they stop you? I made an alt on 8/8/08 (just to have an alt with that born date, logged in to just see, but haven't since)), and it never asked me for any information except e-mail (I mean information that linked it to me. If I had to give my name and all, I gave it, but I just recall giving e-mail). It wasn't until I went to the account page that I could link credit card, address, etc.

I know that if you go to one of the third party websites they won't allow you to create an alt, giving you a "this e-mail has been used" or something like that.

I am sure that Linden Lab very much wants to limit the number of accounts per household, but there is no practical automated way to do so.

I am also sure that there are ways to detect multiple accounts from one source, but it would require actual staff time to do the electronic detective work.

While some uses of multiple accounts are abusive, many others are harmless, and it just doesn't make sense wasting staff time tracking down the harmless multiple account holders.

It isn't wise to have an unenforceable policy. An unenforceable policy would just highlight the fact that Linden Lab doesn't have great control over Second Life, and would breed disrespect for Linden Lab as the authority figure over Second Life.

The wiser move is the one that Linden Lab has taken, which is to essentially allow unlimited accounts, as a privilege that can be taken away at Linden Lab's discretion. With that policy, Linden Lab still maintains an air of authority and control over the accounts.

When Linden Lab suspects some actual abuse on Second Life, that requires staff time to investigate, the TOS still gives Linden Lab the option to look into multiple accounts. For abuses of the type that Linden Lab cannot clearly prove, or that aren't directly against another part of the TOS, the discretionary authority over multiple accounts gives Linden Lab an extra "charge" against a resident, or an extra enforcement mechanism.

If Linden Lab ever develops the way to automatically detect multiple accounts with reasonable success, the TOS gives Linden Lab the option to go back to a limit per household.

I am sure that Linden Lab wants to have a policy on multiple accounts, and have an automated detection system, not only for purposes of preventing abuses. The fact that multiple accounts cannot be easily detected with any reasonable amount of certainty prevents Linden Lab from advertising its actual user base.

Though many may suspect that the actual user base drops way, way down when accounting for multiple accounts, my guess is actually that alt-itis is overstated. Based on completely unscientific casual knowledge, my guess is:

a) The majority of residents with premium accounts have just one.
b) There probably are a lot of residents with two accounts, but not really to have an alt, but because the second account is a "do-over" after unhappiness with the first account (poor name choice, bad choice of friends at first, paranoia of a newbie taint).
c) A majority of people who create a true alt, because they heard about others doing it, abandon the idea of having alts after trying it for a short time (so they never have more than one alt).
d) Very few people love alts so much that they have 3+ accounts.
e) Though there are undoubtedly a few people with a large number of accounts (say 50 accounts for bots), they are such a tiny fraction of the overall user base that accounting for these few people will not have a significant overall impact on the actual user count.

Those are guesses. But if Linden Lab guesses the same way I do, then they think that the perception that alt accounts inflate the user totals is probably far worse than the reality. So my guess is that they are very interested in counting real users to a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Now, they change the sign-up process all the time. When I tried to do it (on two different days), they asked for real name, birth date, and email address. It seemed to me like they tracked my name and birthdate and froze me because of that. Here's the truly shitty thing, though:

They didn't tell me I couldn't have the account until the point at the very end where they usually send a confirmation email. This permanently locks up the names I had picked: The first was my full real-life name, and the second was my best friend's real-life name. No one can have those names now, and it's all because I was trying to be honest. Meanwhile there are sims with 80+ traffic bot alts just standing around doing nothing.

I would hate to have that happen. I have had names locked up because the confirmation e-mail was eaten, and I couldn't get another sent, but those names weren't that important to me.

I see what you mean by being honest and being at a disadvantage now.

While I agree that the majority of people probably only have one premium, I am not so sure I agree with most of the other guesses. Based upon the questions we get in the forums and the advice we give, I would think that probably quite a few mainland owners have an alt so that they can have a group to own the land. Additionally, I think a lot of folks have alts for the various types of RP they do. From threads and inworld conversations, I'm guessing that *if* a player has an alt, I think the average is probably 2-3 alts (i.e. 3-4 total accts counting the main).

And I firmly believe that the bot runners have tons of alts each -- the bot farms indicate such.

I have had this happen - you can call LL and get the account reset so that you can at least do the initial login.

Thanks, good tip for anyone else reading along. My names, though, were locked up more than a year ago and do not even remember what the names were now. heh

They have the ability now, just not the ability to do it accurately. About a year ago they did clamp down on the number of avatars per account and you would get a message at the last screen that you had exceeded the allowed number. If you tried another machine you were out of luck if you had previously used it to log in with one of the linked alts. So in my case they had my wife's avatars and mine plus one that was foolishly created for my son who could not possibly care less. Different email accounts, different personal information, different payment methods.

When I discussed this with customer service, they were very clear that all IPs used to log in the linked alts were tracked, including my PC at work where I had logged in once or twice, max. I use the phrase 'avatar per account', not 'per user' because this is an arbitrary action that LL can invoke at any time and they choose the metric that cuts off the avatars. Invoke is a better word than enforce, because if they decide today that everyone should have up to 100,000 avs, that's per the TOS and if they choose to cut it to two each, that's their call too.

To be fair, I am unaware of any case personally where LL took away an avatar previously allowed, so I don't think there is much danger of having an extra current premium account taken away due to a change in the winds.