No More Age Threads!

Some of it may be. That's still no reason not to splash all of it to anyone who wants it. Shall I give all your details to my friend Alexei Shebalin in Moscow? After all, they're on so many computers already, you can't possibly mind if they get onto his as well, can you? Eh?

Sorry, but you are really not thinking this through, and poking fun at people's very serious concerns is not showing you up as a very sensible contributor to these threads.

I am thinking it about at, not stressing as much as most of you however....

I guess I jsut never knew how behind some people are on not knowing how much data on them is out there. A little shocked at this point. The fact of the matter is... If you don't like this then your going to drive yourself nuts cause the net is only going to get bigger and require more and more. I mean your attempting to fight a lost battle here. Knowbody is forcing you to give your info... You have a choice. You may not like your choices but welcome to life. If you goto the bank they want your info to start an account... If you want a credit card, they want your info to give you one... same things. Knowbody is making you... Its your choice. Hell in the U.S. you can not even rent a apartment without getting a full check done on you. Its everywhere.

And who said SL is going to splash it? You people have SL convicted of crimes they have not even done. I am far from defending SL on alot of things but I at least wait for them to blow up first. This thing is not even out yet and you guys are claiming your infos getting sold, the company doing it is shady (And they have not even been named yet), your info is going to be splashed... and so on and so on.

You show your passport and or ID everyday at the airport for some of you to a person who is making just enough money to put bread on his or her table. You give your credit card to a kid working the checkout line when you goto the store who is make just enough to put $5.00 in gas in his or her car and yet its SL your worried about getting it? WOW.

True...no 3rd party company will get my passport data or other confidential info. As it so happens, I spoke with a city official 4 days ago and he said that you should never give away that info on the web no matter how reliable the company may look.

Mandy C

Exactly. Nothing more needed to add to that...

Morwen, privacy activist from the first hour *winks*

True, Voodoo - but shopping websites will not have my passport number, nor will they have my driving license number - they definitely will not have by social security number (or national insurance number as they call it over here).

It is the "threat" of LL (or their third party) asking for these peices of information which is the concern - I say threat as it isn't clear what will be asked for at the moment as it will be varied by country.

Take where I am in the UK. Neither passports nor driviing licenses are mandatory here. There are plenty of people who possess neither, so requiring both or even just either of these will result in some not being able to validate their age, even if they want to, plus there are those who do not see why they should give such information to a foreign company not under the jurisdiction of our data protectiion legislation, who by their own advertising do collect data for the purpose of market logistics!

There is no universal identity card (yet!) within the UK - the closest we have is the National Insurance number, and the UK Government advice is that:


(http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/Taxes/BeginnersGuideToTax/DG_4015904)

Basically, the only reliable and acceptable way of verifying age for UK residents is that they have a credit card! We'll have to wait and see whether that is the LL verification process for UK residents...

I can understand where you are coming from however SL is located in the U.S. Not saying our system is perfect at all cause its far from it.... Again... Knowbody is making any of you use SL. Its your choice.

On an airport I show my passport to a person in a function that makes him trustworthy by default (custom officers are government over here). But that is something different as a company unknown to me and which has been not proven thrustworthy to me.

And showing a passport is something different as sending the information over rather insecure internet-connection.

I will never hand my credit card to someone who will take it outside of my line of sight. And I think paying by credit card in daily life is not as common as in the US (at least that is what I heard). Most payments are done here cash or by bankpass (which needs a pincode to be entered for a payment).

Morwen.

Well I can not fight with you there there. Sounds like its rather secure where you are. Here in the U.S. lets say you go out for dinner and decide to use your credit card. Chances are you will lay it on the table with the bill they will pick it up and go run it. Which means its out of your sight for a few minutes. Its VERY common in the U.S.

I am with you on this part though... I would much rather deal in cash only myself. I don't trust plastic however in this day and age there is nothing you can do about it. Its only going to get worse. Its just that some of the things people are bringing up to try and defend why SL should not do it are just crap. Not all but alot of it.

As for your passport or anything else. The point is... Its still sitting in a computer someplace and that computer can be hacked or done it by one of its own employees at anytime. No information is 100% safe in SL or out of it.


It will be funny to see how many of these people vanish into thin air when the age verification takes off. Makes you wonder how many underage people really are in the adult version of SL. Time will tell.

With over 50% of users now outside the US I doubt LL would be amused if we took your advice. You said elsewhere that we need to all go with the flow of the internet. That flow is globalisation, if you can't accomodate for users outside of your base country you can expect to go the way of the dinosaur.

I want age verification, in fact I want madatory age verification not this half effort we are being offered now but that doesn't change my dislike for handing out information which has never been required of me in any online environment. Yes my passport, NI number and driver's lisence details exist on the web, on government servers, the same government that issued them to me and the same government that tells me not hand share them frivolously online.

Howver this is still speculation as I await LL's explanation of what will actually be required from users in the verification process.

As many point out the majority of the people using SL at the moment are outside the US.

If LL start introducing obstacles to all those non-US users to participate in SL, many of those users will leave SL.

Although it may reduce lag, is it in either the Linden's interest or those trying to run business in SL if the non-US community leave?



P.S. the credit card handling for SL is now located in the UK, and hence is under UK Data Protection legislation!


P.P.S. despite the TOS, your contract with LL may be subject to local legislation as well as US legislation, where LL do not have the legal authority to override the local legislation.

So what you are saying is, "non-Americans - get stuffed!". Gee thanks.

So you don't care if non-US nationals are forced out of SL.

How nice of you.

You may be a bit more sorry when some of the popular stores and sims run by non-Americans start closing.

You keep saying your same goverment as if you don't trust the U.S. LAMO. Ok I live in the U.S. and don't trust them either but thats besides the point... lol

The fact is SL is located in the U.S. That fact does not change just because somebody does not like it. And to be honest I think there is alot more going on then we all know about behind the scenes. First we hear the story about the FBI being in SL, then they put the clamps to casinos and now age verification. There is more going on then we know. some of you outside the U.S. are getting all pissed off but SL is in the U.S. and following U.S. laws. They are in the U.S.!

Boils down to the same thing I keep saying... Knowbody is forcing you to use SL. Its your Choice. And to say it will vanish... I don't think so. There is alot of people who plan to use this age verification as well. They just don't post it cause there is no reason too.

Hell I hope this does clean out some people. Might return the grid to normal operations again.

True, but at the moment they are sitting on official government computers where there will be a national enquiry if/when the local government allows this to happen, or an international outcry if a foreign government allows this, or a private company covered by my local data protection legislation so I have some legal redress should this happen.

We are also refering to pieces of information (passport, driving license, social security number), where there are official guidelines even within the US to whom you should give this information which does not including online virtual environments - if LL does ask for this it may raise eyebrows in official circles (and may even lead to official advice being issued not to do so!).

Like others I have no problem with age verification - just a concern that the information they may ask for according to their FAQ, flies in the face of all official advice what not to do!

Very true. It is a fine line. I think the way they get around some of that is by asking for only parts of the information. Such as only your last 4 of your SSN. I am not sure how they are able to find what they need with only that but somehow they do it. Also you think about it... The company doing it must have some huge database and they had to get their information someplace to match that SSN and other info. So where did they get it from and on a legal term? The goverment? I am not sure myself.

SL is like anything else... It has rules. You don't have to like them. It does not matter where your from. You either follow these rules or you don't use it. Its as simple as that.

And I gather you think that all rules are good rules just because they are rules. Yes, I've seen that attitude before.

lmao, it does not matter if its good or not. AGAIN...

KNOWBODY IS MAKING YOU USE SL! Don't like it... Don't use it. Simple as that. It's their company. They can make any rule they want and require whatever they want as long as it falls within the law.

There may be some interesting Freedom of Information requests going into the UK Government if it appears the UK Government has sold a US company the database of passport numbers, National Insurance or driving license numbers!

Yeah I really don't know how all that works. Not sure at all. But they must get the information from someplace and by legal means.

And you don't care.

You don't care if people are necessarily deprived of their SL experience because of the imposition of rules they cannot (for one reason or another) comply with, and which were never needed.

You don't care if many people close down their accounts and leave SL. You seem to think the people who will leave will be those who are actually underage. You are deluded in this.

You just go and laugh your sorry ass off.

And the rules - even those in the TOS are legally challengable!

The only way you can not comply is if your a child or choose not to. Thats it. Other then that, there is nothing stopping you. Now I could understand your point if SL was saying screw all of you except people in the U.S. but their not. You just don't like the options and thats fine. You have that choice.

If you are in the UK, you may not have a passport, you may not have a driving license, and to according to the UK Government, you shouldn't give out your national insurance number.

If and it is still an "if", LL insist on you supplying at least one of these pieces of information, there will be people in the UK who are not children and who can't comply with LL's request!

I can't comply with this age verification because:
A) I have no passport
B) I have no drivers license
C) My country does not force a national ID card on people

To comply, I would have to have to find the $200 to get a passport and submit information such as fingerprints and iris scans that are now required for a passport. The government computers do not already have every piece of information.
There is also the slight matter that the name I use for everyday life is not the name I was born with. Without breaking any laws, my original identity ceased to exist, and my new one appeared out of thin air. Getting a passport in either name will be extremely difficult or downright impossible.

Failing the above, I suppose I could spend a lot of time and money learning to drive simply to prove to a game company that I am legally old enough to drive. In many countries though, the legal driving age is below the age required for accessing adult content, so this is a pretty dumb idea and holds no value for verifying age in SL.

My 3rd option would be to somehow change the laws in my country and force a national ID card on 60+ million people, then somehow give those records to an american company against massive protests.

It is not a simple matter of being underage or not chosing to verify.

I find that quite offensive.

The company that now handles SL credit card payments is in the UK and as such outside the US legislation. I would have sympathy with anyone in the US who were uncomfortable that their credit card information is held outside the US.

I take it you don't run a business in SL - or for that matter any RL business. In this global market we know work both in SL and RL, you need to encourage market growth not deter potential and current customers.