do the lindens listen to us?

i dont mean in the forums of bug reports... digging around on my computer if found a SL log file (you too can see yours at: mac: ~/ library/ application support/ secondlife/ logs/secondlife.log or pc: C drive/ Document and settings/ "Users folder" (depends on what your computer is called)/Application Data/ Secondlife/ Logs/ Secondlife).

at first i thought cool, it has all about stuff sl is looking for and uses, then i scrolled further down and i see a log of everything i have said! and it has the keys of the people i IM with.

i assume this is a file sent to LL when we crash, if it is im not sure i like that it has a transcript of everything i say. yes i know if said in open chat what do i want to hide, but there are times that no one is in earshot that one might say something in open chat that would otherwise stay private. if its not im not sure why its there, it seems to reset every time we log though, so its not a perpetual log of everything we say and do.

thoughts?

Yes, of course they do. It's in the TOS you agreed to.

But hey! This means we really DO have a log file we can use!

they can read that shit

but i doubt they do. Seeming they dont listen to us here, why would they read out in game convos?

My first reaction was that it's pretty scary to have the log recording chat like that and I was getting a bit angry. Then it occurred to me that if the Lindens really wanted to listen to what I say, they certainly have the means to do it in real time (and I'm sure that includes IM's) so what does the log matter? It's their system and I'm sure they can access any data they choose.

I have no idea why the log records chat. I'd be curious to find out though.

For abuse reports, when someone files one they go back and look at the logs to see what was said and done.

If LL records your words on their server when you thought that you were speaking in private, that's one issue.

How you view it depends on whether you consider LL to be merely maintainers of the physical infrastructure of the world, or also administrators of a nanny state where they police people as well. They've often said that they don't do the latter except to maintain the Community Standards --- which of course means that they ARE policers of people as well. Living in SL means accepting that.

Well, the servers and the networks at their end belong to them, so it would be very hard to argue against them logging what their servers are processing for that purpose.

When it comes to recording your words ON YOUR OWN MACHINE though, and then copying them upstream at some later time without your prior consent, that is a completely different question. And I rather suspect that it's a question that would weigh very strongly against them in a court of law.

They had the opportunity to capture your words if they'd wished to do so when they were in their domain, but they didn't. Now they're on your machine, they're in files that belong to you, not to them, and copying files from your disk to their site without your consent is absolutely not on. The amount of precedent for that is collosal.

Perhaps the next step is to examine the click-through license. If it says something like "You hereby give us permission to copy what files we deem necessary from your machine" then there will be trouble ahead.