What Would You Restict to Verified?

Optional means exactly that. It was your choice not to verify your account. Many players are taking advantage of that option to create disposable griefing accounts. If you don't want to be lumped in with them, you have the choice to change your verified status at any time.

Additionally, giving billing info does not require you to spend any money.

It doesn't grant you the 'fully verified' status, though. Which is rather strange given the report of poster above how your cc details seem to be checked on signup for validity... but oh well.

According to Daniel and Robin, many players are not.

Shrug.

I would also suggest if LL provides the LSL calls that you include a check in your vendors to make sure the purchaser is verified or if they don't a check to make sure the purchaser is on your property. And make sure the view from outside your property is acceptable for view by minors on nearby parcels if it isn't alrdy. Not sure on mature content hidden behind walls but viewable by moving your camera inside. Probably alot of sticky situtions for mature content providers coming up that will need legal advice.

Of course not. I'm sure the vast majority of new, unverified accounts are nice folk just checking out the grid. But because these unverified accounts have proven to be a great new tool for griefers, the good ones are inevitably going to get tarred with that brush. Heck, it was already happening before the latest changes to our profiles in the recent update.

Well, I don't like the idea of only having the credit card info status to go on. I would much rather that they offered other, more valid means of verifying identity of the account holder, and simply flagged accounts as "trial account" or "Verified ID".

That said, with the tools they have proposed so far, I would restrict access to much of the land that I have influence over. If I have to eject someone from my home, I want some assurance that they are going to remain unable to bother me, and that they won't be back 5 minutes later with a new unverified ID. It doesn't prevent someone from griefing my home, but it does ensure that if they do, they have something that they can be traced with to keep them away after that.

At the very least, I would act to lock down the two parcels that I have my home on, so that unverified accounts have no access to my land where I live. I can choose to do that on one of my parcels, and I will ask the owners of the other parcel that I have a home on to do so as well. I would do this simply because my household has had too many intrusions on our privacy. Even to the extent of so-called newbies walking in on intimate moments where a couple was in a well-concealed underground room. (Clearly not the least bit accidental).

I would counsel the owner of the two sims that I recently built to restrict access to all his private island sims, simply because there are too many adult-oriented attractions there that a kid shouldn't see, and it reduces his liability somewhat. One of those sims includes an extensive XXX 'playground' with over 50 sets of pose balls in it, as well as other sex beds and the like. Another sim, the one I have one of my homes in, has a water park where clothing is optional. He has a thrid sim nearby which houses a major club that features strippers and escorts. None of those three sims should be accessible to someone who is unwilling to offer any validated means of identifying them. I could sit anywhere in any of those three sims and send a camera to virtually any location in any of the three sims. So the only way that I can see that he can prove 'due dilligence' in keeping out people who refuse to prove their ID in some way (thus potential minors) is to lock it all down.

The other area I would feel it necessary to restrict access to is on those who would contract my building services. I normally accept payment in Lindens or via credit card or paypal after the construction work or landscaping is done. If someone is tagged as having no payment information on file, I have no assurance that they have the means to make payment. True, they could be an alt for someone with the means to pay. I have an alt that has never purchased a single Linden dollar, and never will. That account gets all their money from my main account. Yet I still verified that account to the status level of "Credit info on file". Any account with the ability to pay for thousands of Lindens worth of custom building work should also have the means to verify that account. So for me, any account that is tagged as "No ID info on file" is the same as "Bad credit report". They will have to pay cash in advance, to get me to do major work for them.

I do not, at this time, sell any "adult oriented" merchandise. I halted development on a few adult-oriented projects when they dropped account verification attempts. But if I were to start selling any sort of 'adult products', those vendors would of necessity be scripted so as not to function for unverified accounts.

I would NOT restrict access to my clothing or texture vending locations, simply because they are all automated and you get nothing unless you pay for the merchandise. But if I were to start being targeted by the "put an invisible prim over the vendor and scam the customer out of their money" griefing attack, then I would feel compelled to restrict those sites as well, or to remove my vendors from malls that were unprotected. I wish I had better ways to protect my stores, but Linden Labs has yet to offer them.

One thing I can and will do right now is use the verified status as an important criteria to accept a student (I teach SL Sex Education) or client (I escort). My initial interviews with a perspective student/client always had one goal to weed out underage individuals, and this is going to help me a lot.

Now what I am uncertain about is putting constraints on my products. I have a book on the market (The Joy of Second Life Sex) plus a couple of bondage sculptures. Once the tools are available, should I restrict sales? I'm uncertain.

Also, what about SLExchange and SL Boutique. I can't control the sales mechanism there.

It looks like there are mainly two different reasons peole have for restricting access to verified accounts; adult content and griefers. And it looks like, in the near term at least, adult content will be more restricted than anything else. It's an interesting point that if you hope to reliably ban someone from your land, you also have to restrict it to verified accounts. I hadn't even thought about the issue of Linden events. I doubt there's an easy answer to that one. One thing that occurred to me is that there doesn't seem to be a reason people can't have both a verified account and an unverified one.

I think that's a fair assumption, and a reasonable use for the way LL is setting this up.


I don't follow you. The ban tool works right now, as long as you don't try to ban more than 50 people. It doesn't matter if they're verified or not, they're banned. Anyone, verified or not, can go make a freebie alt and come back -- but as I've tried to make clear in several threads now, that is where the Lindens' new TOS comes into play. If they have that user's unique computer ID on file they can ban that computer so it won't matter how many alts they try to make, they cannot access Second Life.


The Lindens can try to be less naive about the griefing issue, for starters, and turn off scriping in the sim where they're holding an event. Turn it back on when they're done if they need to, but it's not that hard to make griefing difficult. Turn on auto-return and make it instant to prevent prim clutter. They're not even using their own tools.

The only time I might pay attention to someone's account status is if I'm considering putting myself or my business in some kind of risk, like collaborating with someone or starting a joint venture. I'd want to know that if things went sour I might have some recourse without having to hire a lawyer. I don't plan to restrict access to my land or stores in any way.

I was under the impression you could only have a certain number of alts tied to one credit card, so that typical people would run out of alts to have banned from your land. Whereas if you allowed unverified accounts on your land, they could create an infinite number of alts to bug you with. But maybe I'm missing something, I'm not that experienced with alts and banning. Banning a machine regardless of what alt is being controlled from it would be very useful.

I don't understand how people equate "no payment information on file" with "this person is under 18". There is no logic to that.

I wouldn't put any restrictions to access based on payment status. It's a stupid thing to do and doesn't solve any probelms. Teens can have payment info on file just as easily as adults.

That isn't what people are doing, they are saying if you don't have any payment/ID info, we aren't taking the chance.

Really, this is no different than an online porn site asking for your CC#. It covers your ass a bit. At least if some kid stole his parents CC# or is using the CC# his parents gave him, then the ball is in their court for not watching his transactions. You, as a seller, took reasonable precautions and shouldn't be held liable if some legal action is started by some shocked parents when they see their kid has been using LL to play sex games.

I run several businesses. While none of them are what I would even loosely consider "adult" in nature I do make and sell skins, which like most in SL are anatomically correct. I do not plan to restrict access to my land, stores, transactions or events based on anyone's status of any sort.

For those that mention griefers...the new hardware profiling is the tool designed to deal with griefers, not account status. I would like to see the hardware profiling taken one step further to allow land owners to ban people of any account status from their land based on hardware profile, not name. The majority of griefers I have had have been verified, pre-open registration residents.

To those that mention keeping adult content out of the hands of minors, I remind you that despite the unverified registration, SL main grid is still an officially adults only grid. LL runs the teen grid for teens and has set up a system that is specifically designed to automatically place teens in one grid and adults in another. Until the day comes that LL does away with the teen grid and makes the main grid officially open to all ages, this remains an adult only place. Any teen bypassing or parent helping a teen bypass the system under the old registration or new is violating the ToS. I have no obligation legally or otherwise to change my business practices in an adults only grid to worry about the rare potential that a teen may violate existing ToS and bypass the system setup to maintain two grids and see some digital naughty bits on some painted skins in my shoppe. If or when LL does away with the Teen grid and intigrates the system, my stance will change and not before. (And yes, I am a parent of two teens, one of which is on the Teen Grid).

Account status does not indicate length of time in the community either I might add. Anyone who registered using a cell phone prior to 6-6-06 is also listed as No Payment Info on File, regardless of how many months or years they have been here. Neither does an unverified payment method have any connection logical or factual to age, maturity, or dedication to the community. Many couples play together and maintain only one account with payment info and the other unverified because it just makes financial sense. Many people I know live in countries whose credit cards are not accepted by LL and have had serious trouble getting payment info that is accepted by a US company. There are almost as many reasons why someone account might be unverified as there are people.

I myself maintain an alt to use to escape the pressures of my businesses when I need to relax and not be bombarded by 20 IMs an hour asking for custom work or other business issues. She was made prior to 6-6-06 but is unverified because I used my partner's cell phone to registrer her. At that time, under the old system my family had reached the maximum accounts per CC and that was my only way to make an alt to use for relaxation. I have been here for two years, spend lots of money, am a content provider, mainland land owner as well as private island owner and definately have invested in the community. yet when I log into my account to relax I will likely be restricted by many just because I used a cell phone to register that name.

Lots of assumptions are being made about who unverified people are and why they are unverified. Yet like all other stereotypes, they are in the end not true for likely the vast majority of those the prejudging will be aimed at. Sad in my opinion, and very bad for the community in the short and long term.

So...I most definately will not be using any of these tools based on account payment status, but do thank LL for the implimentation of hardware profiling and respectfully request landholders be allowed to ban using those tools. That will truly help stop griefing in SL.

Your wrong on one critical point I bolded. Yes verified status doesn't mean 18+. BUT it does filter out alot more teens/kids than it does adults. AND it shows YOU used every means at your disposal to protect teens. If those means are legally insufficient liability goes back to LL because they didn't provide you with sufficient tools to filter out kids. And I 100% expect LL to try to pass liability for minors on to content providers. LL doesn't provide ANY mature content. They have no intrinsic need to take liability. The more they open the grid up and pass on verification and the tools to check it the easier they can escape liability for a teen accessing mature user created content. Everyone is yelling LL will be liable... why? Teen grid yah LL will be as they are creating a "safe" space for teens where they are supposed to keep mature content out. Main grid LL provides no mature content. It makes legal sense for them to pass that liability on to those that do provide it.

I've said before, anyone selling non-adult content would be silly to limit access to their stores (think of it as "natural selection" -- survival of the smart ones who don't limit like that). And I don't really consider anatomically correct skins to be adult - not in comparison to some of the other stuff in the adult grid.


Essentially, by opening registration up and not even going as far as requiring a valid email, LL has already opened up the grid to the teens. Which is harder: Giving a credit card number or checking a box claiming to have a birthday more than 18 years ago?

I'm aware that CC checks are not foolproof, but it's instructive that I have AR'd many times as many accounts since 6/6 for suspicion of being underage than I ever did in the year prior to that. It's also true that the a CC number is one of the common devices used around the internet on other adult sites as a measure of due diligence. We should at least hold to that minimum standard -- and since the Lindens have thrown open the gates and left us holding the bag of responsibility, it's up to us to do whatever we can to protect ourselves.

That, and I want to follow my own conscience as a responsible adult & parent.


You'd be amazed at how many profiles I looked at last night which were created after 6/6, and which have payment info on file. I do not think this is going to have the huge impact some people believe it will have. I'll go further to note that the majority of the content on the adult grid will really have no reason to limit by account status, since they don't offer adult content.


In another thread someone suggested that photocopies of passports or other identification should be acceptable to LL, and I agree. This should not be strictly about credit cards, it's about verifying that someone is who they say they are, and are over the minimum US age of 18 if they want to access adult content. If Philip wants to bring in more non-US residents, this deserves a closer look.


Not by the majority of us who are in favor of the verification changes. I would also point out that stereotypes are being thrown the other way -- that we're "anti-newbie", that we want to ban anyone born after 6/6, that we think all newbies are griefers. None of those things are true. Griefing and unverified status are two different issues that only indirectly and tenuously relate. I'm all for letting LL handle removing the griefers from SL, but I'm still going to try to do what I must to control access to adult content for which I may have responsibility.

What would i restrict to Verified?

On my land? Nothing.

With my relationships? Nothing.

People are free to drop by my place which includes a house/workshop, patio, and sky platform. But no one is allowed inside the house/workshop itself unless I let them in, my security system sees to that.

With relationships I don't care if one is unverified, free, premium, or even Anshe Chung. One becomes and stays a friend based on merit. If you're a nice person, I keep. If I catch you griefing me or anyone else or violating the TOS, you're out, most likely for good.

It's that simple. I judge based on how you are and not what your verified status is.

Right! I'm old enough to have teenagers, and I'm unverified!



Easier. A teenager these days is more likely to have access to a debit or credit card on their parents dime. Where I might give pause, they'll gladly sign up, after all, it's not their card.

So it's guilty until proven innocent, then? Napoleonic Law?



It notes that I haven't used it, still labeling me.

Increase your account credit $25 limit buy at 338 then limit sell on SLEX for not more than 332.7 with. Do that you upgraded for free, beat 332.7 and you show a profit. And yes my numbers factor in purchase fee and withdraw fee. And are possible at the time of posting. Watching lindex for opportunities its possible to reach max validation at no cost. You can't change how people decide to protect themselves. But if you don't like it you can change your classification at no cost but effort. And alot less effort that whining in a dozen threads.

Increase your account credit $25 limit buy at 338 then limit sell on SLEX for not more than 332.7 with. Do that you upgraded for free, beat 332.7 and you show a profit. And yes my numbers factor in purchase fee and withdraw fee. And are possible at the time of posting. Watching lindex for opportunities its possible to reach max validation at no cost. You can't change how people decide to protect themselves. But if you don't like it you can change your classification at no cost but effort. And alot less effort that whining in a dozen threads.

Edit: PS throw the guilty until proven innocent bull the the trashcan where it belongs. This isn't a court of law. This is how individuals make decisions on who they interact with and how, based on how people present themselves. Legal systems and guilt before or after proof have nothing to do with that.

This change has very little to do with staving off griefers. All it'll do is make more griefers (and non-griefers) pay money to Linden Lab, and offer an "out" from predator lawsuits.

You see, it's win-win for them. If half the grid restricts access to "verified" accounts, most people will feel pressure to pay money. If not, the lack of any form of stipend will pressure them anyway. That's become a class in and of itself now too, because (as Sophia put it), completely new residents can't upload a single texture.


Back to griefing, if a griefer can't get into an event they will... verify their account and go where they please, if they haven't already. The title of "Verified" then acts as their personal savior, because it states "I have paid you money." Like it or not, when someone is paying your bills by proxy, chances are they'll get favorable treatment.

So all this will create is a subset of verified griefers less likely to be banned because they're generating revenue. Oh, goodie.


And meanwhile, LL will be laughing all the way to the bank.

I don't plan on restricting my places to anyone unless they are a verified griefer. Just because someone has an unverified account doesn't mean they are a griefer or a minor. To even think that is absurd.

I have had my share of griefers before this change and I don't see this whole uproar as a big deal or anything to lose sleep over.

Wrong paradigm. Try "commercial transaction."

Or perhaps going, "Oh thank God, we finally broke even!"