UK folks, take care: new laws

They are one side of the conversation, thats different. In many states they are required to inform you even then - thus those disclaimers.

In some states as long as one party in the conversation is aware of the phone conversation being taped - its legal.

In others it is not.

These are separate from the government getting recordings / tapping those lines.

Between Clinton/Monica Lewinsky and the Bush admin's illegal wiretaps - the Media has gone over all this pretty much in depth over the past decade.

LOL

The rules are the same, you forget.

I chose an email provider who's privacy policy states nothing gets released or accessed without a court order.

Did you?

You might also want to check the cell phone terms of use. Might be some surprises in there for you related to non-voice services.

Throw out these companies and TOS and all that mess

And just ask the simple question.


When should the government/ law enforcement be allowed to spy on me?

My answer is only after they follow due legal process.

I consider that a better answer then -

Whenever they want as long as its the internets.

you mistake the businesses for the government.

The constitution and laws limit the government, and the laws limit the corporations... till you sign the dotted line or click the button.

You have a choice not to.

The key being the non-voice services. Because the phone tap restrictions don't apply to those.

Again ... please ... try to understand ...

I am not saying this stuff is illegal.

I am saying I think it should be.

What I agreed to is not relevant to "Should bes"



Is the concept of limiting the Government's power so foreign to people these days?

Oh so if linden labs does it there will be issues... but you want linden labs to do it...

By allowing the corporation to set the restrictions of when they will hand over communications - you are giving up all protections. They are not going to fight the government, especially with no weight of law behind them.


This is why the Phone tap restrictions exist. They are protections. The same protections do not exist for internet communications, no matter what the company says they will do.

I think the same protections should exist.

It's not the government monitoring you. But a business you give permission to monitor you.

Read the terms of use, decide if they balance out with the service/product.

If not, don't use it.

Just like you don't take a loan without reading the fine print, and if you don't like it you go to another bank.

actually the wire tap laws apply to online communications iirc from certain court cases.

They have to get a court order, unless you signed the dotted line to allow them to cooperate with out one.

I don't think it should be Linden Lab's decision whether they can monitor me or not.

They shouldn't be allowed to unless directed by law.

Just like phone taps.

The fact that they can, and even are expected to means our laws are messed up.


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Substitute Yahoo IM, AIM, Joe's IM shop, etc for Linden Lab, same deal.

Do clubs monitor your use of the premises?

Same thing, you're playing on their sandbox so they will make sure you use it appropriately.

For the most part they are hands off till there is a report filed about something. Then they investigate the logs and related data.

Just like a bouncer will when told someone is being a jerk to the customers by the bar.

You are missing the forest for the trees.

Actually you are missing the forest for the leaves on the trees.

And this has caused this discussion to drag on far too long.

I understand the current state of how it works - I already know LL is fully within its rights to act as it does. I do not see why you are bothering with examples of why they are allowed to do something I have already conceded they are allowed to do.

I was discussing how I think it should be. Should be *changed* to be.

In fact that is all I have been saying throughout.

Mort, you couldn't AR yourself out of a wet paper bag (with LL)

Tsk tsk, as usual when your logic fails you revert to this.

Oh yeah?

Well your pineapples don't grow in fields anymore.

So there.

nice one.

But in every thread I've discussed things with her, she resorts to similar comments rather than try to explain her reasonings at points.

And the key question this time was if something is not an issue because it's Blizzard doing it, would it not be an issue if Linden Labs does it.

And the invasive methods of monitoring have been mentioned by her as needed for SL...

So I found a logical fallacy in her statements and want a clarification

I see how well Blizzard's screening process works. I removed the names here, but they are in the linked story.




XXXXXXXXXXXXXX was arrested on kidnapping charges when ZZZZZZZZZ, just 14 years old, ran away with him on a trip from Boise, Idaho to Franklin County, Washington. That's where Jones was ultimately arrested and ZZZZZ was recovered safely. According to police detectives, the two had met in World of Warcraft. XXXX is 27 years old and apparently the police get all uptight about you transporting girls half your age across state lines.

An Amber Alert was issued for ZZZZZZZZ last week, but authorities caught up with the two alleged WoW fans earlier today. Incidentally, XXXXXX was driving a 2008 Chevy Aveo with the license plate OMGROFL. True story. It's one of those rare runaway/kidnapping situations we can all laugh about. Good times.


http://kotaku.com/5012489/world-of-warcraft-gamer-arrested-for-kidnapping-underage-player

There is a couple points this suggests to me.

It really is a bad idea to give out personal information on the net - because this stuff really does happen.

Sexual predators who are looking to target children go to where the kids are (like WoW)

WoW isn't any "safer" than the rest of the internet.

There's one more important point.

It's far more effective to teach kids not to meet up with strangers like this, than it is to try to keep such adults and kids separated on the net. From the reports on this case, I can't tell at what point, if any, force was used. But it seems likely that the initial meeting was voluntary. If she was looking for this sort of contact, and if WoW couldn't provide it, then she would have found it somewhere else - there's no chance of preventing that. If she wasn't, but wound up getting seduced, then the keeping seducers away from her is just a stop-gap measure; she should have been taught enough to not be vulnerable to seduction.

Ohh most definitely -

Parents being involved, concerned and educating their children is far more effective than any stupid list or computer program weeding out phrases or half-baked IDV plan.

Its the same thing as it was before the internet.

When you were a kid would you have given out your address and phone number to some creepy guy who pulled up to the side of the road?

No .. because your parents taught you better.

Parental and personal responsibility isn't what the parents want for them and their children...

these threads illustrate that rather well:
/327/b7/257638/1.html
/327/6d/258386/1.html

Ya if you are giving people your name and address---duh.

Otherwise wow itself is far safer, secure and staff are responsive and plentiful. At the same time, wow itself is covered legally and everything that can be done is done, unlike SL, which is the wild west and about as secure as a wet paper bag.

With SL if this happened...there would be the chance, no one would even know who she had gone with, because anyone can start an unlimited, free account with fake identity.

Regarding the chat log privacy, Blizzard is not a fumbling, confused company. They actually do take users security and privacy seriously. You can actually trust them.

SL should use Blizzard, as a template for how to run an online world, company.
The old business adage, "Copy success" applies here.

Blizzard is professional in the best sense of the word, not a haphazard blackhole of confusion.

Could I ask you to please be a bit more specific? The first thread has over 130 posts, the second nearly 400. I saw some debate on this issue between a handful of posters (including you), but I didn't see anything that would justify a generalization beyond these participants. Is there some specific reference that reflects how the public at large (or parents at large) feel about this?

Oh? Guess what SL is covered legally as well! Imagine that!

And they can't monitor the world in real time Rebecca, even with the people they can hire with the larger income stream from all of their products. (Key thing is Blizzard has far more income and size than most game software companies ), they still rely on the users reporting incidents (something you don't do, because it's a bother to let LL know something is being done that shouldn't be)




Just like with chat rooms, messenger clients, email services, and lots of other things.

And guess what you can create an account with fake information! All you need is a $10cd key...and a free email service. For someone preying on children something that cheap isn't a worry. Just means one or two fast food joint visits are cut out a month.

Question is why were the parents not paying more attention to what their child was doing online? Why did they let them go online unsupervised in their home? did they not password protect the computer, did they not take the network cable and lock it up when they were not there?

I mean if your favorite example can't protect a child from the predators how can anyone?



Trust a company that scans your hard drive every time you use their software? You said that wasn't a problem because LL wasn't Blizzard... so if LL did it would that be a problem?



Blizzard is not reliant on user created content, Second Life is. Different rules apply, the control Blizzard has over content allows for them to have tighter controls on the users, combined with the fact it is a teen rated game (though the online experience may change covers them just like it covers LL due to the fact it is not a single player experience)

Second Life is not rated! It's appropriate ESRB rating would be M with a clause stating "LL has no guarantee that online play will not be changed drastically by user content as we do not limit people on the 18+ grid from building what ever they want."