What Does Privacy Mean in SL? What Should It Mean?

I think this is the most fundamental single question unearthed by the Electric Sheep Company spybot. I think it reaches beyond the spybot to ageplay and ultimately to the survival of SL itself.

Here is a post from the original thread, Automated Burglary, that is intended to set out the main issues. Parties interested in contributing INTELLIGENTLY to this issue are more than welcome here. Others, please go elsehwere.

Originally Posted by Kyrah Abattoir
Well to take their defense I do not feel like i have to ask permission either to make data mining.


Hi, Kyrah, welcome to the thread. Actually, your observation about whether you "have to ask permission" is not so much a defense of ESC as a partial explanation of why there is a problem in the first place. A problem, by the way, that reaches far beyond ESC and its malignant little searchbot.

If a would-be data miner did "have to ask permission" there would be no problem here. Any problems would be strictly between the miner and the people who gave permission.

In the present case ESC released a searchbot in-world essentially scanning avery Resident-made object in it and collecting those where the "for-sale" box was checked. ESC then posted these with landmarks set right in front of each object on a website separate from SL and LL, claiming it was a search service for in-world buyers. ESC did all this not only without asking anyone's "permission" but also WITHOUT NOTIFYING THE OWNERS OF THE OBJECTS. As a result, owners found themselves relieved of valuable objects from inside their homes and properties for nominal or zero prices by unscrupulous people when the owners were innocently unaware that the for-sale box was checked, or were builders using a workaround that had been safe common practice for years and had suddenly and without warning made them vulnerable. ESC's response to complaints about this effect was profound contempt and condescension - and for quite some time not the slightest inclination to fix or remove this bot. (And by the way, the bot cannot read the contents of vendor devices, so misses maybe 90% of the objects legitimately for sale in SL; it is almost useless for its stated function.) Whether by accident or design, the result was not merely data-mining, but predatory data-mining, and from the moment ESC knew about this effect, consciously predatory. It is evident that from their point of view, The Electric Sheep Company are the meatpackers, and we Residents are their sheep. One ESC officer has been quoted in a publication as speculating about "life-logging," meaning basically tracking every move an avatar makes as well as every object it owns or disposes of. I will leave it to your imagination what other harmful (to Residents) uses spybots could be put to by exploitive or malicious people. I have thought about it, and some of the possibilities would have a deeply chilling effect on interest in SL by individuals and businesses alike. Some of the possibilities are just plain chilling.

For us, the questions now are, what can or should LL do about the problem ESC's actions have exposed, and what can or should the Community Standards be to deal with the possibly predatory use of spybots, and what can or should Residents do to deal with what many see an unwarranted and harmful intrusion into their SL lives and sense of privacy, and what can or should "privacy" consist of in SL, and how can such privacy be guarded?

For LL, there are other questions, such as, should they be allowing outside entities to be making such dubious use of data on LL servers which LL, after all, legally owns, and which might someday actually have monetary value to marketers and others? And, at what point might LL lose the legal right to control their own data through failing to take action to assert and protect control?

As you see, Kyrah, there is a lot here for intelligent people to work on; a lot of questions about SL that need intelligent answers. I hope you will help work toward those answers.

The ESC question is simple. Don't mark anything you don't want sold as "for sale". Their scanning is no different from a random resident walking by, admiring an object on your land, clicking on it to find out who made it and noticing it's for sale.

People complain that this ruins a work-around they use for giving people objects, but you always have the ability to drop the object from your inventory onto the person's profile. Don't complain that other people are using this function for what it's for...selling and buying.

As far as privacy: The only privacy you are afforded in SL is the level of anonymity you are given with a fake name and not having to give any other resident any personal information you don't want to.

If your name is Dave Parker and you are a furry that has sex with robots in SL and you want it to be a private matter then don't tell anyone you're Dave Parker.

Good grief, how many threads on this subject do we really need?

Well, I guess Strife asked for it by closing the ONE thread where it was safely contained, but still.. do we REALLY need that biased "summary" plastered in, like, five threads?

This is a thread for dealing with the issue of privacy issue in SL. There is another thread for justifications of The Electric Sheep Company.

IMO, establishing zones of privacy will be essential to the long-term survival of SL.

Other views on THIS issue are welcomed.

SL will survive even if you don't feel like you have privacy. Most people in SL aren't so self-concious/paranoid/unrealistic that they would leave because of "lack of privacy".

If you want privacy, save up for an island and restrict access to it.

THIS thread already deals with the issue of privacy (it's even in the title).

Thus, THIS thread is superfluous and unnecessary.

If you feel it's unnecessary, then you don't have to be a part of it.

Fair enough; enjoy!

I agree .... which is why identity verification is such a pain in the ass for those who know that privacy otherwise does not exist in SL.

Thanks Dave

Well, the thing is, you have basically NO anonymity to LL. That's a different story alltogether. You have pretty much as much anonymity as you want from other residents for the most part.

It's not like your Av is even you! Why be shy with it?

And I won't get into Age Verification pros/CONS (note the caps) because that's been done to death on these forums.

You all do realize that this privacy debate has been going on since 2005 when p2p teleporting was instituted, right? Only the names have changed, the arguments are - to a one - exactly the same. In two years of beating this issue to death and back again, LL has done exactly nothing/nil/zero/nada to accommodate the wishes of that segment of SL that demands privacy. Debating this in the forums does nothing but provide keyboard exercise for your fingers and adds to wrist fatigue without any other pleasurable aftereffects. Robin's office hours are Tuesday at 11 am in-world. You want a TOS change - that is where you need to start....

Robin is on holiday.

Well, the same could be said about SL!

Thanks for the background, Isablan; my time on SL does not go back that far. Obviously, privacy vs. LL is a separate question, because LL owns all the data and can examine it at will. So is anonymity vs. LL; there are sixty-eleven threads on that issue; no point in dealing with that here. Instead, this is a good place to examine what privacy is/can be/should be among the Residents - which includes bots and data miners, and people who object to both.

How much more should another Resident be able to know about you or your avatar beyond what you want him/her/it to know?

I suspect one reason LL has done so little is that it may not be clear what the Resident consensus might be that should be reflected in Community Standards.

Thanks for the background, Isablan; my time on SL does not go back that far. Obviously, privacy vs. LL is a separate question, because LL legally owns all the data and can examine it at will. So is anonymity vs. LL; there are sixty-eleven threads on that issue; no point in dealing with that here. Instead, this is a good place to examine what privacy is/can be/should be among the Residents - which includes bots and data miners, as well as people who passionately object to both.

How much more should another Resident be able to know about you or your avatar beyond what you want him/her/it to know? Does a spybot coming around with a proctoscope bother you? It is obvious that nearly everybody (except searchbot apologists) want some degree of in-world privacy; the question is how much is desirable and/or feasible?

I suspect one reason LL has done so little is that it may not be clear what the Resident consensus might be that should be reflected in Community Standards. It would be good to hammer one out.

The other question is, what can Residents do ON THEIR OWN AND FOR THEMSELVES to protect or improve their in-world privacy? If we think about it, probably quite a bit. That's worth exploring here too.

In anycase we can do somethings to give each other some sembelance of privacy. Don't go into a home uninvited. Don't use camera tricks to spy on people. If you come across 2 people having an intimate moment in a relatively secluded area, don't bother them. A little consideration can go a long way.

You can't impose your rules for behavior on everyone else and they won't listen anyway.

When I was a n00b I thought camming around was rude and left people alone.

Now my attitude is, don't do anything in public that you don't want viewed by the public and there is no privacy in SL at this point beyond putting a security orb around a skybox and hoping no one is around.

This may change but for now that is just the reality of the situation.

I am not IMPOSING anything. Merely stating how I approach things. You are free to do as you choose. If voyeurism is your thing, fine. I pretty much choose to mind my business. I must have missed the memo that Courtesy was deemed a bad thing.....

Um, you posted a list of don't and shall not's, I didn't see it qualified as only applying to you.

*shrug*

lol, I'm the least curious person in SL. I don't know what is inside my neighbors house. I don't look into the next skybox. I couldn't care less. People could be having poseball sex in their front yard next to me and I would rather watch paint dry, honestly.

But if people can easily cam around they will. And given that this ability to cam into anything is built right into the client, why would any noob think it was wrong?

That about sums it up for me.


Har-

This is the fourth time I've seen you post your message to Kyrah...
/327/96/178132/45.html#post1507202
/327/49/184449/1.html#post1515742
/327/3b/184573/2.html#post1515745
and now the OP here on this thread.

There's a gaping flaw in each one.

"Data Miners" can NOT solicit for permission... because it would be "spamming" people which is against ToS.

ESC would be idiots to abandon a model that abides by the ToS/CS and adopt one that would flagrantly VIOLATE them.

Repetition isn't likely to get linden lab to take a stand on this issue...
though they might swat you for cross posting.

As you are someone whose avatar has been in SL since 2005 you should damn well know, there are many ways to solicit permissions, etc. besides spamming. So come on, post again, and further discredit yourself to the generally intelligent people who populate SL.

As for repetition, I post it where I think it is relevant to the situation at hand. Glad to see you don't like it; that means to me that I'm doing something right with it. I'll let Strife be the judge of whether I'm overdoing it, not you.

Fair enough... let's ask him.

Fair enough, my post was clumsily worded. It should have said those are the rules I follow myself.

I'll answer this question with a question:

How long will it be before ESC has the bright idea of making bots that record every conversation on the grid, tag 'interesting' ones, and publish them on the web? Only took me a few minutes, and I'm sure they're smarter than me. From what I've seen, they're not letting ethical issues stop them, either, classic mad scientists.

How long before there is a booming market that appeals to the peeping tom hidden in everyone that turns everyone's SL experience into some sort of soap opera or reality tv show?

==Coming soon on ESC.COM==
Brenda: ooh rusty, your attachment is so big and wide
Rusty: Brenda, use that kneel anim I sent you
Squeeze: which side do you want me on?
..
..
- don't let me get started, I could write fictitious names and invented embarrassing quotes for hours.

My point:

1) Yes, random passers-by can and will overhear things, or notice stuff for sale, and if they're quick, they might ninja an item, and if they're naughty then they got a cheap thrill out of noticing that Britney and Justin did more than share the same makeup.

BUT

2) The small risk of one passing person noticing something, is nothing like having an army of robots scanning whole regions and posting the most 'interesting' stuff on a web page visited exclusively by people hoping to get a thrill or exploit the info for their gain.


Honestly thats like the difference between: a)seeing a cheerleader holding hands with a quarterback as you pass them on the way to the store, and b)installing webcams in every room of her house and posting live feeds and all her personal info on a website for perverts. IRL the second thing is illegal, apparently in SL it isn't?

Take Care,
Lorna.

Nooo! I had a thread about Censorship being bad and he closed it for "spamming", don't do the same here.