Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Account Verification for Accessing Adult Content

i didnt go through and read all the posts in this section but read alot of them and kind of scanned though but here are the problems with making you give personal information to "verify" your an adult.

i do alot of role play in various characters depending on mood, and have several alts role play/fantasy is alot of what this whole game is about so alot of people that i know have several alts some more some less than others right now you can have fun and no one really has to ever know who you are in rl...now if you have to verify lets say you play out your fantasy play here.... 5 years from now you decide to run for political office as we all know they will dig up anything they can to make you look bad... even if you were just playing for fun and on adult sims it can now be traced and found who you are and what you were doing.

also i am sick of adults being punished for minors... parents need to watch their own kids instead of punishing adults because they want eveyone else to babysit for them.

i think all you need is a simple check box in your profile much like is already on xstreet i certify i am an adult and wish to see adult content... yes a minor can check that box and go to adult sims...however that takes the blame off of Linden and the other adults who wish to enjoy a break from the depression that is currently the real world without having to give out personal information. as rampant as identity theft is now a days why should we need our information "on file" in another place to be stolen just so we can have fun.

Amen to that!
I couldnt agree more.
Hopefully the Lindens will read your post many many times, because tthats the truth and thats how many residents think about it.. We as 18+ people cant be responsible for a kid that sneaks in SL and goes to mature sims... the parents should carry that responsibility.
Not us, Not linden lab.

Cleanfeed is a spam filter.

The name made its way around into other stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_system)

Jeremy should sue or something

The problem is that time and time again it is the content provider that gets sued and loses when underage players access content that their parents or the government do not condone, not the unsupervised child that sneaks in and sees it. Even when they make you double-swear that you're an adult.

There are so many complaints about Linden Lab trying to find a way to verify the age of members. If you guys truly love your SL experience and want it to remain as unchanged as possible then perhaps it is in your best interest to try to work with the Lindens and offer creative suggestions instead of wasting everyone's time complaining. If history is any indication the changes will happen with us or without us, so we might as well take the opportunity to contribute.

So the question remains: What methods of age verification could work for you?

I've already verified using the current methods, so if that doesn't change then I should be ok.

Peace.

<speculation>

I don't think this has anything to do with merging the teen grid in. That would cause big problems all around.

I think this is about providing at a click of a flag, a "clean" SL for corporate types and such. There are a variety of things many people wouldn't want popping up on their screen at work, even for a moment. If that is true, I'd expect the definition of adult content to to grow too, after the system is in place.

</speculation>

Whatever the case, requiring account verification to access "adult content", actually works against getting it flagged as such. (see my prior post)

I'm likely wasting my breath though, as it seems "adults-only" functionality is in 1.26.

BT use it to block extreme sites, so do most other isp's in the UK.

This is precisely why people are suspicious LL's motivations for this move. If this is not about protecting teenagers then why is age verification being required? It makes no sense to any rational human being. If your intention is simply to move some of the more graphic content away from those of a sensitive disposition that is all well and good (though it is unfair that such a policy should impose difficulty on those who have already established adult-oriented content). However, you are not "providing choice", as you put it, but restricting choice. It is my choice, and the choice of a very large proportion of SL users (perhaps even the majority), to be anonymous and to provide as few RL details as is possible to access the service.

I was horrified when my MAC address, HD serial number and other information were required to set up an alt account. These details are not required using the online registration page and would not normally be available to LL unless there is code in the viewer to obtain and transmit them. If the viewer software is collecting such key data that is very disturbing, since it is invaluable information for dataminers, tying any activity to a particular machine rather than just to a particular network or ISP's connection pool.

The affiliation with organisations like Aristotle make this an even greater concern and suggest that LL's real intention in pushing for this irrational identity verification (since that is all it can achieve) is to increase the value of the system as a personal data source by tying personal identity details to machine details.

As you have seen from the comments in this thread (and, I am sure many similar threads) privacy is a primary concern of your users.

Here is a link to information about the campaign against ID cards in the UK. It will give people a little insight into the issues concerning privacy:

http://www.no2id.net/



But you are ignoring many of the questions, Jeska, or, at the very least, not responding to them in this forum. You have still failed to supply a credible or rational motive for pressing this issue. If your motivation is genuinely to provide choice then that is achieved by making new choices available (for instance, as many have already suggested, making a G rated continent for those too prudish and intolerant to co-exist with the more mature majority) rather than by introducing new restrictions. George Orwell would have been impressed with the double-speak involved in your proposal and explanation.

After the openspace bait-and-switch and this atrocious attempt to phish for personal details there are very few strikes remaining for LL in my book.

There is no such statute they simply ban people for it & added it to things you can report people for.

When asked they simply point to the ban of broadly offensive material, which is a meaningless term, the US courts have said so.
What I wonder about is what else may eventually banned as broadly offensive.
And what other similar unwritten policy maybe enforced.

Are Furryies broadly offensive? To some? yes!
Are Shemales? Are Gays? Non Humans? Etc etc etc.
Is an exposed Nipple? Seems so, we already saw bans on that.

LL needs to be more upfront about what the actual polices are, and not simply use the following as a bludgeon:
"Linden Lab has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to suspend or terminate your Account, terminate this Agreement, and/or refuse any and all current or future use of the Service without notice or liability to you."

While they certainly have the right, they do need to make the rules clear if they want customers.

I have a sorry feeling that this is simply a down spiral leading to "Disney LL Style"
So much for "Freedom in Fantasy" & "Your World, Your Imagination"!

How much did the bank charge you last time you got them to write a letter for you?

Crikey. I had no idea most ISPs in the UK even did Usenet any more.

Cleanfeed blocks websites typically by routing suspect sites via a transparent webproxy - I don't think it effects usenet...

It was recently responsible for preventing any UK resident from editing wikipedia...

Matthew

Both is true. In some countries, it's pretty easy for minors to get a credit card or a verified paypal account. In other countries it's near impossible for many adults to get either one, nor do they have any ID / social security number that would be accepted for the sake of age verification (think of women in muslim countries, for example; I just recently learned this too).

So there are two ways in which the planned age verification will inevitably fail. But why not just do what most adultrated internet sites do? A simple "Yes, I'm 18+" button or a disclaimer with Yes / No buttons is totally sufficient to legally be on the safe side.

X-rated websites rarely require a proof of adult age; everybody can access the countless porn sites with free adult material. Even paysites have freely accessible preview content and only require a credit card if one decides to sign up. As a matter of payment, mind you, not as age verification.

So why not just add a new "adult" checkbox to the search window, and have a disclaimer pop up when trying to activate it for the first time. Plus another disclaimer when trying to access land flagged adult: "You're about to enter... can't guarantee that you won't be exposed to... hereby declare that I'm 18+ and that it's legal in my country to view violent / sexually explicit content."

That would cover all angles, without excluding some adults from adult content. And without forcing the unverified LGBT community to give up their anonymity and out themselves.

A cheaper method,at least in the States, LL sends you a letter, registered mail, that requires a signature and ID to pick up. It is against the law to receive and open mail not addressed to you, although not enforced. The letter says , Yes I am SL customer Joe Blow, and I am over 18. You sign and return the letter via registered mail. LL keeps the letters on file.

The bad news is we still haven't seen any reason for age-verification or the enforced move of adult content. It seems like LL aren't going to answer our concerns and aren't interested in different approaches. The forum is just repeating things that have already been said, so I'll stop keeping-up now. BIG bad down to LL for that

But then there's the good news for LL - there really just isn't anything out there that can take the place of SL. Here I can build and script whatever I can think of; and then make money selling it. Nowhere else offers me the same flexibility. So, I'll probably stay, unverified, while there are still clients. Congratulations to LL for SL itself anyway

I dunno, OSGrid.org is getting closer to doing that. It isn't quite there yet, maybe another year or so.

Matthew

In LL's defense, it IS the weekend over here. I'll give them until close of business tomorrow.

Something that has only been slightly mentioned is that the Age Verification System has a software bug that LL has been working on for over a year and cannot fix.

I Age Verified in Feb 08. My friend checked the verification requirement box for her property and i was immediately ejected.

A check of my account confirmed that I am age verified but the SL software has a broken link between it and the verification system. I contacted LL about this and was emailed a response that confirmed that I am in fact Age Verified. They also admitted the bug in the software and that they were unable to fix it.

I personally talked to a Linden about this who simply said they are working on it and walked away when I suggested that the verification system should be shut down until it works.

Meanwhile I cannot go onto any parcel with age verification checked. I cannot go into my account and reverify because it simply says im already verified and ignores the request.

For me, implementation of this system would be a disaster as I would be excluded from a huge number of merchants and content providers.

A review of the LL problem reports shows many with the same problem, and yet LL continues to act like the system works. What are you going to do for us LL? Its time you either fixed this bug or shut the system down for good. Definitely do not use it as the basis for this new system.

Great, so the religious nuts have now gotten to Second Life.

I'm not going to give a company I know very little about or whatever subcontractor it will use for age verification my personal information, especially credit card numbers. Because someday it will be hacked into and you know what can happen from there.

Anyone who gives SL their personal info just to play in an adult area is really asking for trouble since nobody knows how secure it is going to be.

But that aside, the larger issue for me is that Second Life must be catching a lot of grief from the religious wackos who want to deprive everyone of anything that resembles fun. Well, that which doesn't require a gun, anyway. If adult content offends anyone, let them use another service. One of the reasons all the other virtual worlds I have tried other than Second Life are lame is because there isn't any adult content on them. The Mormons and other idiots who want to spread their hate and sanitize American culture can go there. But leave SL alone, okay?

I'm just one user, so Second Life won't miss me. I will miss it. Considering how popular the adult areas are, though, I don't think SL will last very long once they implement this nonsense.

Please don't do this. It is unnecessary. Don't chicken out to a few religious zealots who need a life of their own rather than intervening in ours.

Wow, all the people saying they are leaving must only be in SL for one reason.

"Goodbye everyone on my friends list, I was only here for the cybersex"

Then again by the creation dates, post counts and profiles, there are a lot of alts/bots posting in these threads I suspect.
And seeing bots will be the most disadvantaged residents not able to access an adult continent , I can see why they are upset
Imagine search with real traffic figures, it's unheard of
I guess a lot of adult business would just move to islands so they can cheat their traffic figures.

I can't recall when last I asked them to write a letter. They certainly charged enough for telling me, unasked, the last time I went overdrawn. On the other hand, they were recently happy to witness some documents for me for free.

But, as I said, there would doubtless be a charge. Whether someone felt it worth paying would, of course, be up to the individual. I would certainly pay a reasonable charge for such a service rather than run the risks of submitting the sort of documentation Aristotle were originally demanding, though.

That's a pretty shallow mischaracterization of people's motives. I'm considering it, and I don't engage in cybersex or buy/sell much in the way of adult products. To me, it's a matter of principle, and the Lindens LACKING *ANY* real principle in that regard. I'm a content creator and community builder; that's what I am in SL for.

There are "right" ways to go about dealing with these kinds of problems, and there are "wrong" ways. This is, like the OpenSpaces debacle, a WRONG way. It is sending VERY wrong messages, and makes residents lose faith in the Linden's stewardship of what is SUPPOSED to be OUR world, OUR imaginations, and not simply when it is convenient for their "corporate image".

No matter what we think about all this issue LL allways make what they whant or need to do.....

i do think myself that this is about time the Lindens implemented this , we all have to prove our age while drinking , smoking, driving or entering the military ... why should SL be different? ... what i do see is a lot of people with a lot of things to hide . i do not mind tagging things i am doing as adult , and agree this will improve the sl experience, for those looking for adult entertainment will find it easier in the search making certain keywords only accessable to those areas it partains to (though the existing garbage of the malls) and the add will be targeted to your demographic i am verified in may main and alts now and have no problem giving them what they need to be "adult verified". this isnt the man out to get you , but a company looking after their residents and complying with existing laws . if you use a fake id to acess an adult area , website, bar or what ever you are open to real prosecution , or allowing a minor to do so you will be again allowing yourself to be prosecuted .

This is what I get for coming late to the party, and My back is hurting from digging through all the posts, so if I repeat some concerns forgive my ignorance in advance...

1: Being I'm a person that really doesn't like giving out any information about myself online (paranoid as hell about having my info stolen in this era, so I'm one of the No Payment Info On File crowd) would this mean I would still be able to walk/travel through/sail/whatever Normal, PG, and Mature sims, while being blocked from Adult locations? Or would I be restricted to the normal and PG sims?

2: Being as such, if the latter is the case, is Linden Labs aware while some places mark themselves as Mature, other places simply use that tag as a means to screen out undesirables. This would cut traffic severely in a number of sims I frequent (wich I would not if the worst case of question 1 is true) and even make some mainland sims unreachible to me or provide navigation hazards. (Such as some USS [United Sailing Sims] locations)