Age Verification is here!!

Well, given that the current SL age verification form only allows you to enter one of these - you could have problems!

Actually, I don't recall the web page asking for telephone number either, and since Canada has phone number listed as required perhaps that was the problem with the form initially rejecting Canadians?

Matthew

Seeing how it's generally not that invasive (and ridiculously easy to get around), it is not going to be a big deal and I think the amount of unverified people is going to be a lot smaller than I thought. It still stinks that LL is trying to pass the buck onto us this way.

Hmmm... so it might be easier to shop for a country where identity might be more easily verified, check the obits in a paper from that country... or, I mean, consider moving to that country.

I think LL may be on very thin ice though - as I've said in another thread, the system is likely to give a false sense of security (/142/a0/207632/3.html#post1662706). Outside of North America (so we are talking about 50% or so of the SL populace?), verification seems so easy to get around we will likely see far more age verified minors than we currently find payment verified minors - yet, many from the way LL has presented age verification will be far less cautious how they behave towards an "age verified" avatar than they might currently be.

Will we have a German new item about an adult being caught having pixel sex with a (age verified) minor?

Matthew

Over 70% and growing daily actually.

I think they generally don't care too much beyond grabbing the US population. We have an easy system to identify people, versus, say the UK. We also have the largest single mass of active players and player hours (25% and 35% respectively, I think). I would also bet (oops, can I?) that Americans also have the largest single mass of *premium* players, and that it is by an even wider margin. I have asked for premiums by country as a statistic in the economic data for some time (but I got tired of asking). My bet is that, because of the payment system flak, Americans make up probably 60-70% of premium members and landholders, so extending beyond the largest pool of players is not worth the effort. Grabbing the main pool will satisfy their short term goals.

Nobody grabs me without me getting something out of it.

Ha ha.. that would not surprise me in the slightest. We might end up with 100's of users registered from Kazakhstan or other obscure places. It's also true that there will be a very large number of deceased people registering.

Hhmm. I wonder if SeaLand is an option...

This is such an exercise in futilty.

None of this will stop kids from getting into SL.

I'm going to register as Hapag Lloyd.

ever wonder what percentage of verified accts will be kids?

My guess is that the percentage of verified accts which are minors under the new system will be larger than the percentage of payment verified accounts which are minors under the current one.

Matthew

It shouldn't matter. The fact that there's no a process in place to verify age is enough to do what it needs to do - shift liability. A resident who accidentally exposes a minor to content that could get them in trouble with the law can now demonstrate that a good faith effort was made to prevent that from happening.

AARRGGHH, it's a joke Chip such as the whole LL age verification is.

Wont matter anyhow.

The stuff thats dangerous to kids isnt the Porn.

Its cyber relationships and the possible disclosure of RL information to the possible predators whom they trust.

Things that the Adult flag isnt going to stop.

Your World, Your Lawsuit!

i think the negative will be 'knockon effect'. this is one more nasty surprise for new users to encounter. think about the newbie and thier first weeks in sl:
1. create basic account, explorer sl
2. decide they want land, go premium
3. realise they dont have the L$ they expected to have once going premium
4. look for first land (they still are seeing this advertised) and realise there is no first land
5. realise they are banned from many 'adult' parcels, despite joining as an adult with a cc (internet standard verification)
6. try to buy L$ to score a parcel theyve found, encounter trading limits
its a very frustrating experience, ll should make it a more pleasant experience, not worse.

I can *already* demonstrate good faith effort in two ways:

i) restrict by payment verified - on the basis that a parent who allows their child a credit can has a parental responsibilty to ensure that the card is used responsibly.

ii) by ensuring that my content is on the main grid and not the teen grid. It is very clear on all the sign up pages that minors are not permitted on the main grid and that LL police the sign ups to remove any minors that do.

Matthew

i dont understand were people are getting this idea from.
adultcheck and scores of other avs' have used the creditcard to protect themselves (and thier clients) for a decade. avs' have been a gateway to far more extreme things than anything on sl, and ive never heard of it being ruled that it was not an adequate measure to put in place. even now i can find obscene sites all over the web using the cc as verification, and these are big $ companies running these sites, and most of them are showing the obscene bits before you even have to join. even google image search is full of this sort of thing, so why exactly is sl obligated to take such drastic measures when absolutely NOBODY else is?

That was answered a few pages back: "we’d like to be a little bit more proactive than the porn sites!"

Verification in SL also isn't about age, but about identity. It's IVS, not AVS.

And of course the very simple fact that the majority of residents doesn't believe in SL enough to put their CC on file.

so who else uses your credit card? isnt it in your name? which is harder, opening a cc under a false identity or verifying with bogus info?

Kistty is right, this was never about verifyinga age. For SL to go in whatever direction The Providers are planning, they have decided that they have to pin as much of our RL identities to our cartoon counterparts, for reasons from marketing to taxation, and any possible legal actions. It will be up to us to decide whether SL is worth this intrusion.

Please don't take this the wrong way but what I don't understand about that is if it's not about age verification, but rather identity then why call it "Age Verification" and not "Identity Verification", it's strongly implied by ll that it IS about age verification, after all the message on my profile now says "You have already verified your age".

Besides, i'm sure ll had the best intentions, but this system is so floored it's virtually pointless, anyone would easily be able to find "alternative" credentials to use to verify.
You can do it with just a name, location & date of birth (as i did), not exactly hard to pose as someone else if you really wanted to. To me this system seems obviously much less effective than using credit card / payment info to verify someones identity/age.

I really don't see the point in this *shrugs*

It's also possible that LL simply fell for Integrity's marketing speak and blindly believed what they were spoonfed during the negotiation.

In the end it works out though, LL thinks it has a fool-proof system, residents who don't mind verifying can do so and those that have reservations about it can open the phonebook and safely verify as a person of their choice without LL knowing any different.

Everyone wins (well, noone looses ).