Is this the reason for their decision?

I have been pondering why, in spite of massive public outcry, in spite of massive legal liabilities for allowing minors unrestricted access to the grid, Linden Labs insists on retaining the new "tell us whatever you want and have unlimited accounts" registration policy. I believe I may have determined the real reason... It is to force people to purchase land!

Consider this:

The new registration system makes it possible for anyone at all, including minors and griefers, to gain instant access to the main grid, by filling out an unverified form. You can type pure garbage into the form and get in.

The new policy allows unlimited accounts, because they don't bother at all to check who you are. So it is impossible to throw out children and troublemakers. No matter what you do, they can come back minutes later with a fresh, untracable identity.

In short, Linden Labs took away the doors and walls that protected us, to at least some extent, from troublemakers. Now everyone has to deal with minors pretending to be adults, and troublemakers that you can't possibly eliminate.

Then we have the Linden's official responses to the problem that they caused.

1. There will be an icon on each Residen'ts profile which will show 3 states. ("Anonymous" "some identifying information, but not verified" and "verified it through a successful transaction"... A second phase of this effort will be the addition of LSL calls allowing you to access this information for your use so that a landowner, for example, could prohibit access to their parcel/estate based on level of identifying information available. Similarly, a merchant could make a decision about selling.

A 'scarlet letter' for unverified ID players? What's next? An HUD to make them glow, so we can spot them faster? I pity the honest newbies that get caught up in this...

2. We will change the height limitation to apply to banned agents only, but the limit will be raised to the maximum so it includes sky boxes, tree houses, and other high altitude builds.

So, the only way to protect a skybox is to continually add names to your ban list? Or buy a security orb that automates that task? After all, if you ban someone, they can be back in a few minutes with a different alt. Hummmm. I wonder who will profit from THAT one.

3. As mentioned earlier, we will extend the mute tools to allow you to not only ban someone from your land and ignore them, but also their objects and sounds. We're also exploring the feasibility of making YOU invisible to THEM, to eliminate stalking behavior.

That's nice. IF you own that parcel of land, and never leave it!

4. There are a few script calls that are at the root of the majority of griefing. Landowners will be able to disable those scripts on their parcels, similar to checking 'no fly' or 'no build'. One key example: llPush, typically used for 'orbiting'

Landowners only? No way for individuals to make themselves immune to being griefed?

Do you see a pattern here? Except for the possibility of using a script to discriminate against those who are not verified, all of these "protections" require you to own land, or to have special rights, such as group membership, to the land that you are on.

The message is pretty simple, isn't it? If you don't own land, preferably LOTS of land, you have no protection against the influx of minors and griefers.

Virtually ALL of their solutions require you to be a land-owner, and to remain on your own little chunk of land. Go anywhere else, or heaven forbid, go without buying any land, and you are subject to whatever protections, or lack thereof, the land's owner has in place.

The Land Barons and Island owners are gonna LOVE this! THEY can control large enough chunks of territory to ensure a peaceful environment, once the promised anti-griefing tools are in place.

Get your land soon, before prices skyrocket!

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Incidentally, I would LOVE to be proven wrong here, by seing Linden Labs make it possible for INDIVIDUALS to also have protection, without it being tied to the land they happen to be standing on. Like opting out of push attacks, or making people on a 'personal ban list' completely unable to interact with you. (Like perhaps if I personal-ban someone, I can't see, hear, or be affected in any way by anything that he does.)

I've alrdy got my script done and rdy will protect my skybox and if whitelist bans are too low to provide reasonable protection will also protect my house on the ground.

*applaudes* Well said, all of it. I've been trying to understand why they would do something like this.
I rarely ever post on these boards but this new registration policy has forced me into looking around wondering "WHY?! WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY?!?!?!"

It's utterly rediculous to do this in an environment like Second Life. With the removal of things like dwell and the addition of an open-door policy to registration, it seems to imply to me that LL has basically placed all of the basic account holders into the same basket.
I was a resident of SL for over a year before upgrading. And I've enjoyed my time here very much. In fact, I enjoyed it SO much I stuck around for a year, eventually upgraded, purchased land, ect. If this had happened sooner and I found my self *eventually* unable to access restricted lands SOLELY because I am a basic account holder or "Anonymous" holder (Whatever that really means), I sincerely doubt I would have stuck around as long as I have.

This also creates segregation within the community it's self. Over time, if completely unchecked, the "Froobs" would find themselves shunned and/or lumped into the same category as those who are underaged or just plain trouble.
I can't see that as promoting good business for the rest of the community at all and if anything, is only a giant leap backwards in terms of SL evolving into something of lasting enjoyment for those who log in.

A lack of a credit card check for Second Life is, imho, the single worst possible thing LL could have done to the community as a whole. A lot of what I've stated might seem "alarmist" but really think about what it will be like on the grid in a few months if this isn't rectified.

Totally offtopic (I think) but I don't know where else to post it.

Building in skyboxes seems to be the way of things. it is a private place where we build what we need. The problem is, to protect it adequetly, we have to put in a security script or ask for ban lines that block the flight paths.

Well, here is my idea. Forget the Sky Boxes, why not give us bunkers?

If we own land, allow us a lot of land 30m high and the width of the plot we own BELOW the ground. It would exist from -100m to -130m and the borders between each plot is a phisical wall that cannot be moved through.

Access can be restricted by white list only; the group you belong to or individuals you add.

(just an idea)

I've thought about it, and I don't think it'll be that different. Really.

Now as to LL motivation, it's pretty transparent. They felt they weren't getting enough click-through traffic from folks checking out their web page to signing up. So they made it too easy. And now some portion of the original user base is understandably miffed. And another fraction is using the controversy simply because it is their wont. So there will be some compensating move by LL, which will mollify some fraction of those miffed. And that will be where this thing terminates and becomes like every other forum drama that's bubbled up in here for the last months. Then a new shiny object controversy will crop up and there will be some understandably aggravated users as well as some who reflexively attack LL who will jump on it, milk it till it dies down and so on...

It's the circle of life.