Can you please provide an in-world distinction between "verified" and "unverified" ac

Is is possible to enable in-world distinction of verified and non-verified accounts, going as far so to allow landowners to choose to limit access to thier land to verified accounts only? That would enable landowners to reduce griefing back to pre-6/6/6 levels.

Nepenthes, you're right on target. It is possible, and is something we want to do. We're currently internally discussing about the implementation of doing this.

For everyone who hasn't seen it yet, I recommend reading Robin Linden's Community Team blog, Be The Change:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/change/

This is where we'll be explaining more about what we're doing, including this recent article on identity:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/change/2006/06/the_view_from_b.html

and the need for trust--and thus, verification.