Privacy Concern? (RL information leaks)

I am a stickler about privacy having had troubles with stalkers (both in SL and RL), and often go to great paranoid lengths to avoid having my RL pasted all over the Internet. Okay, so that being said I am worried about something and I am not sure if it's me being paranoid or not...

In the recent announcement about problems with the ForumResMod's there is this:
So it seems that if you clicked on a bad post during the recent test of the new system, one of your fellow forum-ites may have got your RL info, or at least some of it. Obviously IP addresses are easy enough to get, and most people's email is some gmail or hotmail alias that means not much, but why is it that it would include your "RL Name"? and does it include other stuff like your credit card number?

I am not too worried in that I cant remember *ever* clicking on that triangle and if I did I am sure it was like once or twice in the last year maybe. I certainly didn't click on it during the test but that raises another point.

Why would a forum moderator need or have access to that kind of information? I mean Jeska is obviously a trustworthy person etc. but I am talking policy here.

- Does every employee at Linden Labs have access to our RL information?
- Do they even *have* a published policy on this that we can see?

Shouldn't this kind of info be restricted just to those who "need to know" like the billing department or something? I mean the Lindens are many and lots of them have duties that don't take them anywhere near anything that would require them to know your RL info.

Many Lindens also have lots of resident friends which brings up the fraternization issue again. Should they as a company have employees with access to sensitive information being best buddies with other residents? I think it's unavoidable, but then that kind of makes the need for policy on information access all the more glaring.

Can absolutely any Linden in the building just walk over to a computer and look up someone's RL info? If you are best buddies with "LessThanMoral Linden" or "Careless Linden" can you get them to look up stuff on your friends and enemies? Am I alone in wanting to know this? Or caring about it? Do they actually have this policy in some obscure corner of the web-site that I just don't know about?

I would be curious as to what other people think.

interesting..

Isn't this just revealing the player's SL character name, and not their RL name? And, isn't the follow-up contact made through forum PM? The only risk that I can see is that resmods would know which player AR'd the post.

As for LL, I have no real expectation that LL restricts my RL info from most staff. Although I would prefer that, I don't seriously expect it.

Yes. The report only shows the SL name of a person, not their RL name. And even that I've put in a question to Jeska to see if there is a way to make it a number not a name. No idea if that can be done.

As to your question Dianne about *any* Linden being able to see your RL info, I have no idea personally. May be a question for the "Answers" forum?

Well it's nice that you don't have privacy concerns yourself, but others do. I guess your one of those that thinks its a bit of a joke (based on your signature thingie).

My point was that they should have a policy shouldn't they? I mean should "SweepsUpTheOffice Linden" or "DeliversMail Linden" have access to your personal info? We don't even know if they do or not.

I just noticed that there is another thread that someone else already started about this:
/108/f4/84972/1.html
so I know I am not alone.

Edit: It seems the other thread is just about SL information, not RL information leaks, so not exactly the same thing.

Why does a request for clarification or transparecy on basic issues require any justification on your part, Dianne? Maybe because it inevitably results in the suggestion that the requester is suspicious for asking?

No. No. I really doubt it.

I personally don't care if it's private or not. I can stand up for what I believe is right and say it out loud and have it publicly known I don't care if the entire world saw that I posted an abuse report on something that I felt needed to be reported.

What would happen if they just made it totally transparent, it listed who reported the thread, how many times by who and their comments as to why it was reported?

I don't either. In the places where I have worked, in some of them, it's pretty easy to look up all KINDS of information about the workers, not to mention the customers.

I don't worry about it much, as concerns paid Linden staffers. Cause it's really that way lots of places.

coco

P.S. But it is an entirely reasonable question to put to the Lindens.

I had a long talk with Pathfinder about this a while back. He told me resident privacy was basically treated like medical records, and that while there are legitimate reasons to look up someones info, that the system was highly monitored.

He told me looking up a residents RL info without good cause was enough for instant termination.

"B-b-but Philip! I just wanted to send him a postcard! Honest! IM is so impersonal -- hey, ow, get your hands off me, don't throw me out into the street, I need this job, do you know how expensive San Francisco is?! Owch!"

I'll take this at face value, but in organizations I've been in, if you have the access to the info in the first place, then there was nothing to prevent you from doing so, amassing everyone's info and doing something nefarious. Of course, there is no way around this.

Maybe that's what happened to the last 5 or 6 Lindens who were assigned Havok2?

In all seriousness, the lack of turnover at LL is really amazing.

Well this is really good to know. Also it seems like the mention of "RL info" in the bit I quoted must be a typo since Pendari says that the res-mods *dont* have access to RL info. It would be nice for someone to confirm this however.

Also, in the transition from small hippy-geek company to large Internet concern, it would be a good if LL could actually write and post policies such as this on the website.

I am not in that group that previously asked for us to be able to have access to all LL's internal policies as I think that's unworkable and mostly none of our business. I do however think that it is a responsibility of any professional organisation to be crystal clear about this kind of thing, and I do think it's our right as subscribers to the service to know at least these particular policies in great detail.

I mean, I believe what you say, and I mostly trust LL, but it's just so terribly unprofessional. All we really have on most of this stuff is an "I heard that..." kind of rumour about what someone said they heard someone say they do in situation X. That's not good enough really, and given the breaches that have occurred, and do occur, kind of scary.

What if for instance in RL you were a famous person or someone that for whatever reason just did not want your RL info to ever come out? How could you ever trust a service like this?

Do other companies like Yahoo, Ebay or AOL do this? I mean there is always a privacy policy for servcies, but I don't recall them ever mentioning the kind of access employees at that service have.

I wasn't attacking your position. I was just clarifying my understanding of the issue. My latter point about LL doesn't imply that I'm not concerned; only that I don't seriously expect that LL would restrict my private info from a broad group of staffers.

Edit: My signature thingy is visible only to YOU. It's just a fun toy. Go to danasoft.com and check it out.

/108/f4/84972/3.html#post866585

-Pathfinder

Thanks Pathfinder.

As a general principle, I totally agree with you on the privacy issue. However, I'm not sure I follow your logic here in the first place? This quote explicitly says that for privacy reasons your details are NOT included. So where do you make the leap from that to 'So it seems that if you clicked on a bad post during the recent test of the new system, one of your fellow forum-ites may have got your RL info'? I don't see that connection at all?

In my RL position, everyone in my department has access to my address, phone etc. and I don't like everyone in my department so I'd rather that info not be available to all of them in case I had to file a grievance. I'm not sure I would like my SL info available to anyone either. On the other hand, I'm not afraid to fess up to an AR if I were to make one, I just don't think just anybody in the heirarchy should have access to info where they're not involved.

Uh huh. And this is from the Linden who is KNOWN to have engaged in collusion AGAINST a resident with other residents in the IRC channel! I absolutely trust that I believe EVERYTHING said by this Linden on the subject of privacy and trust issues.

Edited to add. This is a statement of MY OWN FEELINGS - not a a statement about Pathfinder. My mention of the IRC-resident-collusion is simply to explain my statement WHY I do not trust him or LL in general.