Credit Cards do not make you an Adult

All registered at the same address presumably? An address that the CC company would confirm matched the card details. An address that LL could cross-checked against any accounts created with your other credit cards. Paypal accounts are also tied to an address. How many of those can you have in one name/address? (Really, I don't know.)

On the one hand, people are going to be more reluctant to cause problems when so many details are known. (Accountability.) On the other (assuming LL doesn't cross check address information), you're only going to get three or four shots at being a bad boy (not an unlimited amount) before your options run out.
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Dillon

My husband has the CC. He allows me to use it within certain guidelines, because that's the relationship we've arranged. (Admittedly, this is a rare occurrence, but hey. I felt the need to pipe up.)

Not everyone has a CC or a debit card, nor does everyone want one.

Your attitude is beyond the pale, though. Maybe all the alts are stretching your manners too thin.

It is called a debit card buddy, unless you have your money hidden in your house you have a bank account.

CC's are one of the best ways of proving someone is an adult.

But stop having a fit because LL doens't care about the griefing problem so they aren't bring the CC requirement back.

Acountabuility. CreditCards/Debit Cards come with accountabuility. Trackable and Traceable.



So you are about to get blocked from a lot of SL because you have an unverified account. The only thing I got from the Philip linden talk is that he is giving us the abuility to block unverified accounts from our land. Lucky for us who are in mature areas. Unlucky for those who are not. The Griefing goes on.

I'm twenty-two and I don't have a credit card. I had to use a close friend's credit card to get an account. Are you really suggesting that I'm an irresponsible adult because I *gasp* don't have a credit card? o.O

I don't like credit cards. Never have, prolly never will. I imagine I'll get one eventually, but until I absolutely need one, I'd rather just write checks, thank-you-very-much, and if you think that makes me an irresponsible adult, well that's your perogative.

In the meantime, there's a part of this that I don't think the proponents of credit card verification are really seeing. Yes, it's pretty common in North America that people over the age of twenty have a credit card. But uh... people aren't issued credit cards because they turn eighteen. Here's what I've seen among friends and the people I went to school with; people either had access to them well before eighteen, or they didn't get credit cards until twenty plus. People who actually *obtained* credit cards when they were eighteen were a vast minority. So even allowing that 'mature adults have credit cards,' mature eighteen year olds often don't. Just due to the fact that credit cards aren't something you go 'Hey I'm eighteen where's my Visa?!' over. You just don't. Nobody does. At least not anyone responsible with money.

So basically the restrictions to apply are 'Eighteen with a CC or a cell phone' which is not all eighteen year olds. Sure it's easy to say 'Well if you don't have a CC you shouldn't be playing anyway!' But that argument is pretty silly and goes against what Linden Labs appears to want. Which is a virtual world that anyone can access with an internet connection. And I am totally with them on that. If people want to spend money on L$ they will, and if they don't they won't.

I'm less worried about griefers than other people. I'll just go ahead and point out that LL is perfectly capable of reading IPs and other information(no, you're not totally anonymous just because you're behind a screen). This is, in fact, the method of banning used by a lot of free services, and I don't see why people think this is difficult for LL to implement(and in fact, I bet they do watch for banned IPs popping up in new accounts).

Finally, kids are going to get access to the mature grid no matter what we do. Do I think that there should be no method of age verification? No, I think that if they can come up with a way of preventing kids from accessing the grid, they should absolutely implement it. Right now if humanly possible. But the CC method is preventing as many adults from playing as it's allowing kids onto the grid. It's not a good solution and it never was. The problem with most age verification schemes is they require you to have a credit card to begin with(I believe, correct me if I'm wrong).

I'll say that it'd be nice if the governments of hte world issued ID numbers or something at birth that would verify age or something, but eh, wishful thinking.

- Harle

I've noticed an upswing in japanese residents. ;0

If you live in a country where you can have internet access, then you have some method of banking as well, credit/debit card, ID card, something. And yes LL does need to offer more alternatives to international users. Any type of bank card should be able to work just fine.

A CC/DC takes the liability away from LL and away from the content providers and puts it squarely on the adult who owns the card. A parent can't come along and say "You let my 14 yr old into your adult virtual world and he had an affair with a grown woman." Because with the CC/DC that was in either the parent's name, or in the child's name with parental permission (that is still required to sign a contract with a banking institution) LL can then turn around and say "No, you let him in. This card is in your name, you are legally responsible for all transactions for which it is used."

If all LL does is charge a 1$ transaction for the purpose of identity verification then the parent responsible for the bills sees this 1$ transaction for something called Second Life. If they do nothing, they are accountable because they have been notified their child is here. Again, it takes the responsibility away from the company and places it back on the parent where it belongs.

Please see my reply in post #21 of this thread. Using a credit card for registration does not, it is true, provide perfect verification of being an adult. But it DOES provide a real-world, tracable asset that accounts can be tied to, to limit the number of accounts someone can create. The old rules allowed Linden Labs to lock out a particular credit card as a means of banning someone. The new rules allow infinite account creation, with no tracable identity AT ALL. Bans and termination of accounts are now useless.

Mobile phone emails, which were valid for registration prior to the recent catastrophe, are common as toenail clippings, and usually kept about as long.

Ceera, bans and termination of account are now only effective against those who have invested substatially in their av and possibly their SL business through their av. At the moment LL needs to be addressing how to police the new generation of disposable accounts they have ushered in. And I seriously doubt if LL has the manpower or willpower to do anything substantial beyond tossing out the occasional figleaf and/or telling us that our protestions are unreasonable.

My apologies, Relee, but I just find it incredibly hard to imagine how a US citizen in his/her 20s, who frequents the internet, manages to get by without a credit card of some nature. If you have a checking account, you have a debit card. If you have a debit card, it is more than likely a Visa check card. You and I are the same age, but I got my first checking account and Visa check card at 17, and it's what I've used for everything internet-related since. I've yet to get myself a real credit card because I just haven't had the need. If you have a bank account (which I absolutely can't imagine not being the case at your age) but just refused to accept the debit card, well it's certainly your choice to turn down convenience, though I doubt more than 1% of bank customers do the same anymore.

I don't know many minors who have free and frequent possession of their parents' credit cards, and find suggesting otherwise to be a pretty weak argument in the age verification debate. As others have repeatedly stated, credit card verification might not work 100%, but that shouldn't be a reason to disregard the 80-90% for which it does.

The only issue I have with credit card verification isn't about whether all adults/some children have them, but putting that demand on international users, which has already been addressed as something that requires more research.

I guess LL wants to make it easier for people outside of the US to register. Where debit cards aren't visa check cards and where credit cards aren't popular.

This makes me curious. How do people in Europe usually pay for things bought online, e.g. from Amazon UK? Just send in a check and wait for it to clear? Or is this sort of online consumerism mostly an American fad?

neko

Well, the shop tells us its bank account so we can transfer the money. We are really paranoid about credit card theft...

I have several friends in England, Australia, Germany, Thailand..... they all manage. Most of them have premium accounts so it's obviously possible. There are plenty of methods of banking that will work just fine in the same way CC work. There are so many ways of giving identifying information. I don't believe the registration changes (and yes I at least accept that they are here to stay now) are about getting people who CAN'T provide identification, I believe it's about getting the people who for one reason or another WON'T.

In Japan, the primary way of ording things online is cash on delivery. Credit cards are starting to appear too; most Japanese adults I've asked have one.

In the UK, credit cards are common, and debit cards (where the money is taken directly from your bank account) even more so.

I don't know about other countries.