Verified Status

One solution to all the mess would be for LL to add a verified status that allows access to Mature and those owners that want to block unknowns. Land owner can choose weather to allow unverified users.

So yes you can come in for free. Yes you can access the play areas of public land. Want to go mature area then you need to do as before. Creditcard etc.

No the system is not perfect. Kids have cell phones (Always thought that was not a smart move) but the creditcard is a serious deal and for payPal the account was verified. But it will keep the grief down to a managable roar. The verified account can be 9.95 one time charge.

LL gets the numbers as the accounts can be created. A new revenus stream and most are happy. Those on mainland still have to put up with hovering or build a protection bubble.

I'm not sure if using 'verified status' for access to parts of SL would fly, but there should be some sort of incentive to encourage players to upgrade from a free account to at least a basic account that would coulst a on-off payment of US$10 or something similar.

Using a credit card as age verification is not a good idea. Lot's of teens have credit cards of one type or another. A debit card works like a credit card, they could have one their parents let them use or even one of those new prepaid cards that anyone can get if they send the company some cash.

If there is no incentive to pay the 10 then no one will upgrade. free = limited PG and 10$ gets you all and 10$ per month gets you land and allowance (stipend).



Yes but debit cards are genneraly missing one of 3 parts, No experation Date, No 3 digit code number and sometimes no name. If the Lindens wanted to be good to parents, hint hint. The sale will show up as "9.99 -LindenLabs Mature access".

Messing with credit cards is real. Has reprecussions. Parents/CC Companies. PPLs think a little more. A question asking your age? LOL no one tells that the truth.

I remember waaaaaay way way back LL did an interesting promotion...
It was a trial account of sorts, I don't recall if it was free or just really cheap, but until the trial ran out (or became "official" for lack of a better term) the user could not acess mature areas.

Now, I'm certainly not naive enough to believe mature-ness doesn't happen in PG areas, but at least it would be *some* additional level of protection.
Become age-verified, and boom you have acess to all areas.
Just an idea, and it seemed like a relevant historical note.

Anyone out there remember how the details of that promotion went?

I like this idea.

It certainly still makes SL 'accessible' for those who are curious to test the water, and it's not unreasonable that if someone is really interested in staying that they should take the next step of providing a proper verification (CC, etc.).

For my part, when I signed up for SL, I actually liked that there was a verification process. It made me feel that Linden Labs where genuine about wanting customers who were responsible/accountable for their behaviour. Any forum that provides a high degree of anonymity inevitably attracts people who are going to feel 'safe' abusing that forum.

SL already illustrates this. Even with verification, many people behave in a way that I suspect that they simply wouldn't even consider in a real-world, face-to-face situation.

If all new comers want to do is to treat SL like a freebie chat room I'm not really sure what advantage this has for LL.


...and yes, CC verification is not perfect, but it does remove the opportunistic sign-up. I think having to commit card details is a much higher hurdle for most than simply having to invent a name, birth date, and email address (something we all routinely do on a throw-away basis to access the more trivial resources on the Internet).

I don't know what debit cards you have seen, but of the thousands I have seen they always have a name, expiration date and the 3 digit code on the back. The only way you can tell that they aren't credit cards is that they say "debit card" on the front.

I suggested that in another thread last week. If not that then at least limit access for unverified users to PG areas. If only so subscribers with adult businesses on mature land feel more protected. (Not to mention those who use their facilities.)

I was already getting disturbed by one or two of the "child" avs behaving in an inappropriate way before June 6th...but hey, at least they were probably adults and you could just move out of the way if conversation/behaviour took that disturbing turn. But when I met a thirteen year old at Waterhead yesterday...with a name implying he's over 18 and looking for women...well, it freaked me out a bit. Particularly when he started flirting with somebody. How would that adult female stand legally if she responded? (And she did.)

I've always wondered what the point of PG sims are in a metaverse that's adult only. Now we suddenly have reason to differentiate...due to the risk of underage signups...but nothing has been implemented. Strange.

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Dillon

Mine doesn't. I've never seen one that does either. Must be an american thing?

If you mean the 2003 one, I joined on it... how it ended, I don't know, I paid up before the trial was over. However, having said that... if I'd needed to hand over a credit card before the free trial, as it has been since, I'd have moved on and never looked back.

Could be. My UK Debit card has them all. It acts, for all online intents and purposes, as a credit card.

Wendel

I know Hiro shot this suggestion of mine down on a previous thread, but I feel it still has merit, so I'll run a modified version past folks here:

1) Start off with a free non-verified sign-up that is limited in the following ways: only allowed to build & script in Linden-sanctioned sandboxes, only permitted to log on for a fixed number of hours (for instance 2 or 3) per 24-hour block, a maximum of 5 group memberships, access limited to mainland only, not allowed to sell L$ on LindEx and expires after 30 days.

2) A US$10 one-off fee for the Basic account unlocks all the main features of SL except land-owning. This would be paid by CC, PayPal or whatever and would give LL verifiable info on the resident's RL age, indentity, etc. Upon purchasing a Basic account, a resident recieves an L$ bonus.

3) Premium accounts remain as-is. This is the option for residents who want to own land.

4) Tweak the referrals / bonus scheme to encourage new residents to upgrade to Basic and/or Premium.

I'm nearly 34, so most definitely an adult - and if I could find decent land on a PG sim I would be there in a shot. Not everyone wishes to be confronted with porn on every turn, for a variety of reasons. All of my land happens to be on "Mature" sims - although there is nothing that I do as part of my regular gameplay in my property that could be classed as mature, it was the only suitable land I could find as I desired roadside. There is most definitely a need for land classification, because I would not want to log in one morning and find a strip club opened next door, should I have found a suitable plot of "PG" rated land for my needs. If people want to have pixel sex in SL, then that's their right - but there must be accommodation made for those of us who do not want to, and do not want to see it.

I would prefer the different levels to be rated "Regular" and "Mature", personally, because "PG" does make it sound a bit Disney, and not appropriate for a supposedly 18+ rated game.

Lewis

OK, fair point. I buy/sell land and wouldn't like for something like that to pop up next to one of my plots. Surprised you struggle to find decent PG land though. I aim for mature because it seems to fetch more when I resell (it seems to sell quicker too)...so I get irritated by all the good stuff I find in PG sims...when there's little similar to choose from in mature sims.

Some lovely 1024+ PG waterside plots at dirt cheap prices on the central continent atm. Protected on the waterside too...and one piece bordering a road and bridge. Can't remember the exact location...was skimming the map..but shouldn't be too difficult to find.

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Dillon

One question I have with the lacking of age verification of any form is whether the Child Online Protection Act (which grant you, is a bit declawed from it's initial founding) would apply in this situation. This law requires verification of age for any commercial distribution of adult material. The question I have is if crap hit the fan, would LL be considered the distributor, and hence be accountable, or would the individual AV/Vendor within SL be accountable.


On the point Lewis made, I think as an extension, there should be three tiers - Normal, Mature, and Porno or something. I believe there is plenty of people whom enjoy the benefit of speaking freely that a mature sim provides (i.e. slipping in an occational splice of more colourful choice words) however would like to avoid the whole sex/porn ridden atmosphere that much of the mature sims seem to manifest.

I agree that these unverified, completely free accounts need to be restricted in some way. It leaves the door for continuous waves of griefers and due to the lacking of any verification, will make LL's work of actually banning known griefers or having any legal fallbacks extremely difficult. I would further propose that these unverified accounts be unable to rez or have objects outside of the sandboxes and even if one of their objects is created in sandboxes and then attempted to be flown, etc. out, that they will instantly derez. This will help prevent grid attacks from these accounts and likewise prevent the general vandalism that has become prevelent (at least in Miramare) since the change of account verification.

When we create and/or distribute anything within SL we are doing it after having been given the indication by the owners of SL (LL) that this is an adult only environment. Whether or not LL succeeds in keeping underage children out or not, we are operating under the understanding that they are supposed to. Therefore any legal liability falls directly into their laps.

Think of it this way. You are a bartender in an over 21 establishment. The owner of the bar maintains the responsibility of verifying the age of the customers. You are there to distribute drinks. So if you serve a drink to a 16 yr old unknowingly, it isn't you who pays the fines or goes to jail for it. It is the owner of the establishment. The only way you can be held directly responsible is if the owner has made it part of your job to check ID's first. LL has not given us the ability to nor the responsibility of verifying the ages of our customers. Therefore it is entirely on them.

That said, LL has also made assurances to us, their consumers, that we can expect SL to be an adult only environment and Teen SL to be a teen only environment. In removing their own ability to verify the ages of new players, they have effectively gone back on those assurances and IMO flat out lied to us. As it now is, anyone of any age can enter either the main grid or the teen grid at anytime.

It's time for someone to step up and assume some responsibility for this decision. Speak up and tell us what you are thinking Lindens and how you plan to protect yourselves and us from the obvious problems your decision can cause.

I also think the ideas that have been expressed here are good ones. Limited access until an account is verified. Even if all they charged on the card was 1$ or even no charge at all... it doesn't keep ALL underage kids from getting in but any safety net is still better than no net at all.

Currently, a credit card is the acceptable age verification method as far as "legal crap" goes. How else would age be verified? Credit check? Background check?

The DA in the US would go after all they felt broke the law and let the jury decide. What happens in RL when guy is caught with a girl who told him she was 18 but really 16 I wonder?

It does pose some nightmare legal issues. We are also talking global laws. LindenLabs sells its self on the internet which means it's customers are in every country in the world. US law may say that posting a question that asks a person what their age is sufficiant. This does not mean EU law feels the same way. Countries have no qualms asking for extradition of people they feel voilated their laws.


Different countries different strokes. Thailand want to play local online game? You have to go to post office with identity card and credit card, fill in a form that you are an adult and that name on the credit card, identity card and the game registration are all the same. Form is sent to the game owners by the post office.

They are being proactive and want no troubles. Mention that there is a kid online after 10pm or in adult area and GM's pop up out of thin air. Not one but 4 or 5 and person is requested to call in right then or account banned permantly and probably a report filed at local police station. These games have millions of players (Thai Ragnarok 3.2m and Thai Fairyland 1.8m the biggest local). There is huge money involved and they dare not risk it.

Self governance goes a long way. Give the powers at be the excuses and an internet ID might not be so far fetched.

A very good point. LL is setting themselves up for legal trouble. I get that they feel they need to inflate their numbers to hold on to their investors, but how many of those investors are going to stick around when the million dollar lawsuits come pouring in from irate parent groups?

It's pretty clear what happened. The two or three top guys in the office were told their numbers weren't good enough and they needed to do something, so this was the kneejerk reaction... a decision made one day and implemented the next. And now because of it we no longer have any seperation between the teen grid and the main grid, not to mention the dozens of alts people now have to cause problems with. Time to shut the floodgates before it gets any worse LL.