Bragg vs Land Bots?

On the blog now there's a response to the Bragg case, without going too deeply into the case I found this part of the blog interesting:

"How was Linden really harmed by what Bragg did?

What Bragg did undermined the integrity of the Second Life economy. Other Residents reasonably expect that Second Life’s economic systems will work fairly and transparently. The use of the exploit undermines that expectation, and causes loss of good will among Residents. In addition, Linden was required to spend time and resources investigating and addressing the scheme, and the federal and California computer fraud laws provide that companies who are the victims of schemes like this are entitled to recover damages for those kinds of losses."

Isn't the use of a land bot an exploit? Isn't this against that "Other Residents reasonably expect that Second Life’s economic systems will work fairly and transparently."?

Doesn't the use of a land bot come under "The use of the exploit undermines that expectation, and causes loss of good will among Residents."

What's good for the goose and all that? If they won't ban land bots despite all the complaints, why on earth do they expect people to support their cause when they themselves are exploited?

I thought the same thing when I read it; it could be word for word a condemnation of the unscrupulous use of landbots.

bots are pretty transparent.

they just happen to be faster and more reliable than humans.

Actually, for the quintessential "average man" user, I would suggest bots do not, in fact, seem "transparent", since its something that is entirely outside the ability of a non-modified client to do.

There's nothing transparent about bots, many residents don't even know they exist.

However it's the fact that they ruin the experience for many residents that I'm getting at, something in the Bragg case that LL are highlighting and yet when it happens to residents they turn a blind eye.

The comment posted by Taft Worsley was excellent. Both a well-thought out response, and just generally hilarious. I lol'd at:

What if, buried somewhere in there, the TOS said “Linden Lab reserve the right to draw random amounts of money from your credit card whenever they feel like it”?

Well... it does say that whatever you've gotten by the money you have drawn, they can take away random amounts of, whenever they feel like....

Ain't no what-ifs about that! If that doesn't undermine confidence in the system, I dunno what does.

I always liked this one: "In addition, if Linden Lab should ever file for bankruptcy or merge with another company, we may sell the information you provide to us on this site to a third party or share your personal information with any company with whom we merge. "

One more reason to root for LL and hope they never fail, or we'll get burried in spam .

And what's best is they can always simply respond with a "Well that's just business, after all."

Good point, but morally, landbots have always been iffy. Morals don't however stop them, legal action does, and legal action is far too expensive to pursue. So even if botmasters are the scum of the Earth, and they are, there is little that can be done, but continue to pressure LL with emails and complaints here and there. Eventually, one of the botmasters is gonna get greedy and stupid and do something completely contrary to LL's bottum line and it will be a whole new day.

You can always hope that a Linden sets a parcel in Linden village for sale to everyone at the wrong price .

Somehow I don't think the landbot would get to keep it.