Philip has posted his intended remarks on his blog

Here's the link:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/philip/2006/06/third_anniversa.html

I wish mr. philip would get his dirty butt in the game and see how bad it is now. But will he i highly doubt it!

More words, no action.

Adding a feature to see if a resident has provided payment information, does nothing to prevent anything.

If that's the best he can do?...........................

My chief concern about the current registration has always been about underage players. Even griefers is secondary to that.

Now, I'm not underage. I hang around mostly in PG sims, and I don't sell any content whose equivalent couldn't be seen in a typical Disney feature film. But I'm well aware that adult content is out there, and currently, it is available for the asking to any underage player.

In his own words...



Yes, I know credit cards aren't a perfect means of preventing minors from entering the game. But just because it isn't perfect, that doesn't mean it should be dropped and replaced with nothing at all. You're right, Phil, a 10 year old can have a credit card. And it's even possible for a child to get hold of their parents card without permission. But let's be honest here. 99.99% of credit cards are held by adults, not children. And most parents do at least keep some control over their cards. Yes, credit card based checks won't be perfect. Some kids will still be able to register. But having that check does at least show a good faith intention to keep minors out.

Right now, a teen could register, and simply by accidentally mistyping their age (never mind intentionally), they will be registered on the adult grid. Equally, there is no verification at all for adults trying to get in the teen grid. The age notice doesn't even say anything about it being used to determine which grid you end up on, and certainly contains no notice suggesting that being dishonest here might have legal repurcussions (or any repurcussions). In practical terms, there is no registration based check at all.

As a side issue, having credit card based authentification is also useful because it shows the person has the logistical means to pay for their account. I am assuming here of course that LL actually wants paying customers.

And having an authentification system that has the means to lock out a person after creating an arbitrary small number of different accounts from one piece of ID also has a definite effect on griefer activity. LL has better statistics on that I'm sure, but I'd say thanks to the general pessimism about LL response to griefer reports, those numbers are now skewed.



Sure, you can investigate an underage user based on reports (which, as I've said, are skewed). You can even ban that avatar or move it to the teen grid as appropriate. And then what stops that player from creating an entirely new account? The present system just makes extra work for LL if they are sincerely policing this, and yet even a 100% success rate in transferring teens to the teen grid will simply result in those teens making a new avatar and coming back to teh adult grid, the way things are currently set up.

(edited for spelling and grammar)

Edit again: Age checks have never been foolproof (ie perfect) anywhere, anywhen. But security isn't be about finding a perfect system that can't be hacked or gamed. It's about finding a system that is more trouble than it's worth for ineligible people to get through.

I'm astounded that Philip is trotting out the argument that credit cards are imperfect at age verification. As the previous poster said, credit cards are a hell of a lot better than nothing. They're the best tool available. Why deprive yourself of the best tool? The other tools Phillip mentions may have some effect, but they're not as effective.

A notation on a person's profile will help a little with social interaction. But will it be searchable via LSL? If so, at least vendors could search for this info before selling mature content.

"So next week on wednesday we will add the ability to see in someone's profile whether they have given LL payment information, which will move in that direction of letting people decide for themselves."

I was astounded that he went down that path as well, and commented on the blog. I am becoming increasingly convinced they are so enamoured with their numbers being up that they don't really care what the cost is in the long run.

No offence Philip but this is complete and utter nonsense
OK try this scenario
old system with CC check or cell phone check. 10 year old enters main grid and gets reported to LL and is summarily baned from second life for being only 10 years old. the credit card or cell phone they use is black listed and they are never able to use it again. they have been effectively banned from SL.

new system NO CC check or cell phone number needed. 10 year old enters the main grid get caught and reported to linden labs the account is baned and the 10 year old Laughs and Immediately gos to the sign up page and creates another account and is back in world before you can say boo.

now tell me witch system is better at keeping out minors.

Lawsuits, even just one of them, are expensive beasties, no?

And, the fact that I agree with Usagi should tell you something. He's very outta touch with his virtual reality, sadly. My respect for him has plummeted, he's just got the cha-ching sound running though his head.

Wait, how can that sound be happening?! I mean, these aren't PAYING accounts for the most part!

Well, he TRIED to get in the game, but he kept getting griefed out of it!

coco

P.S. Reading it now.

He seems completely clueless as to how many young people will actually stay out of a realm when you make it a tad bit more difficult to get into it.

It is one thing to sign up and play, with a fake screenname, e-mail address and birthdate, and quite another to use your parent's credit card.

He says that never stopped the kids before. How does he know that? Well, scientifically speaking, he can't know that.

He assumes that. He hopes that.

Common sense - and probably some basic research - would indicate that it does, indeed, stop kids.

Moreover, as I have said several times now, the laxness works in both directions. Adults won't be nearly as hesitant, now, to sign up to the teen grid.

I tell ya, I worry about this. I worry that their lawyers have told them it won't be on their heads. In which case - I worry: It will be on our heads.

I wish he would see that what he says is good about SL as opposed to the web - that others are right there with you, in real time, interacting with you - is exactly the reason it can't be run as a web, letting in anybody of any age, anytime, to engage in interactions with others. And with no way to ban a soul.

P.S. Wanda, go put that post on Philip's blog. It's excellent!

I eagerly await the creation of yet another underclass citizen in SL!

Really. First it's land haves and have-nots, next it's mainlanders and islanders. And now, the wonderful world of CCers and slinks.

Hasn't anyone at LL heard about the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory? To want to open the floodgates and at the same time foster a virtual community built upon E-commerce is kinda like building that dingo farm next to your day care center.

Sure, not all newbies are bad, but this just makes all the problems such as age verficiation as Warda pointed out so much more rampant.

Philip, can I please get some of what you are smoking?

What exactly does letting someone see if I've given payment info to LL supposed to be good for?

He did not just link our quiet, sane, respectful protest in which we talked politely with, joked around with, and even offered hugs to Lindens.... to interuptions of the event?

On another note, I'm still wondering what impact this new verified (paid)/unverified (unpaid) system is going to affect people who have been here for a year or more and have given identity information but chosen to never pay to go up to premium and never needed to buy L$. In other words, I have been here a year, I run a business, I'm known in the community but mine is a basic account. Am I verified or not? (for example)

Or even I've been here three months, I gave info but stayed on the free basic, I never needed to buy money because I've managed just fine, I've never caused any problems and people know me. Am I verified or not? (for example)

As someone in another life heavily involved in politics, that line jumped out at me like a red flag, heh.

"interrupted repeatedly by protests and problems."

Unless the protesters where rushing the stage and dropping exploding prims on him, I think Philip owes them an apology for that remark.

Duly noted, and done.

In fairness, I realise that credit card verification checks do disuade a lot of people. I guess a reasonable conclusion is that LL wants to expand it's customer base beyond those who would actually consider one day paying real money to be in world, which can make sense in some business models I guess.

I'm not tied to the idea of cc based ID checks, but in the absence of a better proposal, I do think it's reasonable that they remain.

"Well it's been a crazy day with an event interrupted repeatedly by protests and problems."

I wasn't crazy about that either. I was unable to stay there for more than 3 minutes at a time, several times, before crashing, but from what I heard, the protestors present were not interrupting anything.

Moreover, I would like to say that putting the presence of the protestors in the same bundle as the "problems," which apparently included griefers dropping objects to crash the sim, is not very nice.

Oh well.

coco

I'm actually a bit disappointed that LL is completely ignoring their members on this issue as I always believed that they cared about the opinion of their members. I believe it goes without say that Credit Card verification DOES work (of course it isn't perfect), how can anybody say that it doesn't? I had no doubt that LL was going to change their mind on this one BUT I guess it's all about the number of subscribers.

This shows how out of touch philip is. The in world lindens ( most of them ) are the heart and soul of the game and are highly repected. BUT and thats a BIG BUT..resently adds to the family seems that LLabs does not care about players past when adding lindens work group.

But this non cc thing is killing the game. Its getting to the point where HI was attacked, money trees are being stripped but pros on a daily bases. And Philip linden is only saying how NON CC sign is does little to so kids and problem people getting into thegame. IS THIS good? WHY NOT JUST TAKE THE WHOLE `````````ING SIGNUP SIGN DOWN AND SAY ***** COME IN ABUSE THE GAME AND OTHERS WHILE YOUR HERE.! Philip is pissing off 40% of the people playing why 40%? ( because the real numbers of memebrs is another piece of rabbit @@@@@!

I think he actually is in the game a lot more than people think. not always visible in public places, but i see him log in quite a lot considering he's the CEO

Well as long as he not trying to tricking people.Anyways who really know, if he was in the game more then we think he would be correcting problems intstead of branching in to the Japanese game market as he is doing that the moment! Some thing just dont make sence? The game is so out of control and he has help wanted " PR and is looking for a dev team to buildup the LLabs gamers from here in Japan". Why in the hell try to build a population of japanese gamers here when there are SO MANY @@@@ing problems with cheating stealing and raciest remarks and actions going on on sl. The world is bad enough as it is with these people/ and issues . That we have to deal with RL @@@@ as well here?

NO WE Don`t I SAY RABBIT @@@@@　PHILIP LINDEN!

Nothing, they are trying to trick users into thinking they care about the griefing problem.

I think it is funny that he kepted getting griefed out of the game, maybe he will grow a clue but I doubt it.

Copied from the comments on Philip's blog

---

It is hard for me to understand all the outrage about the removal of credit card verification - at least the part of the outrage founded in "the protection of minors".

I am writing this as the father of a six year old son - which is not active on the internet yet but will be soon, I guess - who is very much concerned about the influence of the media (and especially the web) on the further development and education of this child. And I will spend many hours in the coming years to make sure, that I know and approve (to a degree) the content my son is consuming through the web or other media.

For me, Second Life is like the world wide web. It is a platform on which people can create and present content. This content might be suited for consumption by minors or might not. It is not "the internet's" responsibility (or the ISP's or Linden Lab's) who watches and interacts with this content - but the content providers responsiblity. There is jurisdiction at least in some countries which denies this and makes the ISP or a hosting provider responsible for the content supplied. There are pragmatic reasons for this (it's easier to find out the ISP) but from a purely legal pint of view I always found this kind of absurd. It is *impossible* for a platform to control and judge the content interpreting a lot of very interpretable local laws in the process.

In this context please note, that there simply is no worldwide accepted standard in what is acceptable to view for children of different age groups and what is not. The US society for example has this funny notion that children below a certain age (and above breast feeding age) should never see a womans nipples. Let me assure you, that this *not* a universally accepted standard.

To me it sounds at least debateable, if access to Second Life itself should be restricted to people over 18 at all. But LL is a californian company and I understand the legal problems involved.

But even taking into account a necessity or willingness to upheld the US standards in this matter, restricting access to *Second Life* based on credit card verification or something similar does not seem a very sensible solution to me.

Why not extend the verification system, which was announced by you and Robin, a bit and show in the profile, if this resident has verified "some" RL information with LL, if age hase been verified and maybe one or two additional attributes? And in the future the designation of a sim as Mature would prohibit all those who have not verified their ages from entering. Age verification would be available in LSL, too and would make it possible for providers of "mature" content to issue warnings etc.

But these are only technical issues. They might help or might not.

In the long run most juveniles will find a way to circumvent most if not any restriction - as they are much more experienced with handling PCs than their parents usually. The only way to avoid this - IMHO - is for parents to watch and control what their kids are doing - in First and Second Life and try to teach them what is OK and what is not according to the values of the culture and the family they grow up in.

You know this is a bunch of............

So let the parents deal with it right? Since they are are the parents. Its the old saying "DON`T BLAME ME BLA BLA " So phil then its ok to lets the kids in reguardless!

PASS THE YEN......as we say here

I have messaged him requesting an apology for that remark - although I expect to be ignored, I would recommend that others who were there and sitting quietly interrupting nothing make their thoughts known too.

Lewis

As I am not of japanese origin and do not know your idioms so well ... would you please elaborate?