...You have to be kidding me

It reads differently to me. Sounds like if you're a premium member, you will pay some amount less than 10 Linden dollars to access the service and age-verify your avatar. I assume it's a one-time transaction, and not recurring monthly.

Warda and Zaphod - I this our differing interpretations are a big part of the problem!

The way that LL writes their announcements, we're all interpreting things differently. You see the "nominal fee" being the main point of the sentence, and I see the "as part of their subscription" being the emphasis.

I think most of the problem with this is that people are trying to figure out exactly what they mean. It's probably not as bad as people think it is - but the way that it's written, people are going to assume the worst.

Yeah this is one of the things that annoy me about their current underage policy - I was never a fan of Guilty until proven innocent systems.

If we verify through this system does that mean were immune to underage accusations?

If they spelled things out clearly most of their blog posts would be about 10 sentences long - tops

While their Community standards would be 3 times its current size.

True but this is what they currently do now, why enforce something on everyone? That just seems so "guilty until proven innocent"

I can just see it though, mr. 13 year old provides Dad's ID#, becomes verified, brags about being 13, gets reported as a minor, complete with chat logs and LL says "nope he's verified over 18" and does nothing??

If your data was mishandled by any of those companies, I'm sure it would be much easier for you to seek legal recourse - living as you do within the same national boundaries. Not so for those outside your country. As for the problems with data protection laws which allow your personal information to be shared so freely with anybody the government sees fit:

1. FBI agents 'abuse Patriot Act powers'
   

Frankly, I would much sooner take Tony Bennett's advice than leave my Driver's Licence in San Francisco.

Before I give my SSN to anyone for the purpose of continuing to use Second Life I will require the name, address, and social security number of anyone who will have access to my information.

Does that sound radical? Not to me. I appreciate the collection of payment information. It's required to do business. What I don't like is the built in invasion of privacy and potential for identity theft.

Consider the power you give someone when they have not only your credit card data but your social security number as well. That person effectively has you.

To put it simply, I don't accept the argument that in trying to prevent underage customers LL has a higher purpose or right in the interests of protection than the individual customer.

Has horrible flashback to when our CC info was compromised.

Well, we have the usual apologists and the usual dissenters - and the usual rather smug slaps on wrists from the apologists to the dissenters.
I live in a country - Canada - that guards its privacy well. We are inculcated at an early age to refuse to submit private information to anyone. I see no way around this. I will NOT submit to forced (and very aggressive) techniques to provide information that is extremely sensitive. Our law and government bodies would - no doubt - advise strongly against it.
It boils down to the fact that for people in many parts of the world private information is PRIVATE.
I am sure my partner will leave SL over this. I will not prevent him from doing so. SL will lose people who support freedom and who actually actively protect and defend our intellectual freedoms in the real world (like myself and my partner) in the real world.
And all because some kids have slipped through the net and been spotted in a bar drinking cartoon gin and watching cartoon girls do a cartoon strip; have you been watching cable TV in the past 20 years?
We will probably be forced to declare our religious and political affiliations next.

I was feeling pretty okay with this until a few minutes ago, when I went to check out the parent company at http://www.aristotle.com, and checked out their "Power Tools for Politics" page. Now I feel a little sick to my stomach. Just knowing that they are into politics was bad enough, but when I got to the part where they say they have worked with all of the administrations since their inception (and hence the current presidential administration), I almost puked in my mouth.

Gosh. Well, I think at this point I will remain un-new-system-verified until it becomes a barrier to continuing to use SL in the way that I am used to (which is primarily PG). At that point, I guess I will have to decide whether to leave SL permanently, which is not a choice I look forward to at all, at all.

Maybe if I ride it out long enough as one of "the new unverified", it will give LL a chance to back out or refine this idea..... Hey, I can hope


.

Wow...thanks for posting that. I disagree with most of the current administration's actions so this just seals the deal for me, no verification for me. I provided a credit card, that should be enough!

Did you follow the link to voterlistsonline.com?

Don't worry, your personal data will be completely safe with these people, honest.

Yes........

I am feeling less and less confident each passing moment.




.

Maybe an open letter jobby is called for

Stupid idea for LL to try something like this. In this day and age of identity theft, you bet that this company will be the next target of hackers and crackers trying to get into their systems to get easy info.

I'll quit SL before I give them anymore personal info.

I WILL BE THE FIRST TO SIGN THE OPEN LETTER. I would write one myself except i don't know how to process it for the SL world.
Please, everyone, protect our privacy - many of us live in countries that WARN citizens to NEVER provide private information (such as Social Insurance Numbers) to businesses and foreign states/nations. For a majority of us now (I suspect) the USA is a "Foreign State".
Many of the wonderul people I know will leave.

Credit card companies beg to disagree. For one thing, they're experiencing a lot of chargebacks to men whose wives have discovered porn charges; the men are shocked--shocked!--to find someone has been using their card for porn, and demand the charges be reversed. For another thing, credit card companies aren't keen to be used for age verification for free when it opens them to liability; some are either charging extra to verify age or are demanding--you guessed it--3rd-party age verification.

For example, consider Visa's official statement that "Visa recognizes that requiring credit cards for purchases of age-restricted products, such as cigarettes, is not an appropriate safeguard against sales to minors and that without proper verification children have easy access to tobacco sales via the Internet" (http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=563).

I imagine more and more Internet porn sites will be moving away from credit-card-based age verification and toward such 3rd parties as LL is employing.

you couldnt be further from the truth you clearly havnt thought about this



as soon as this happends it will effect SL's ecconomy dramatically, many businesses are going to close aswell as peoples accounts that cant get verified or refuse to supply sensative data to about themselfs.

only a fool gives out sensative personal data over the internet
and linden labs wont even be held respobsible for our inventory loss when we loose things
because of the bad service they supply,
so not a chance of them getting info like that from me.

I could work something up later as an inworld voting system, but I'm not great at wording.
If someone can come up with some good wording, webhosting and a voting booth will be sorted.

I'm with you VooDoo. If the privacy issue is very important to you (it is to me), then don't get age verified. I don't mind at all missing "adult" content (I have enough of that in RL lol) and knowing that it won't be as intrusive (like those awful 16m plots with the RL porn shots meant to make someone buy the land to get rid of them) is just fine with me.

And I don't think LL will lose many people at all; on the contrary, I think that the people who signed up, explored a little, got put off my some of the xxx stuff will be back.

My understanding is that the number of people who use porn are a small percentage of the population but the ones who do, use it a lot. And for those people, I would think that having non-commercial experiences in one's home would still be available (like the sex beds) and I for one won't be panning with my camera. Its not perfect but I think that if your shop sells adult stuff, it will be a change for you and the land owner but it will also make it more like RL.

I think you have a choice as to whether to do this or not altic. And I don't think it will have the effect you think. I think it will increase SL's economy as people return who were put off by some of the very vulgar content; as well, after being on the beta grid, I realize that voice is going to make a big change in SL. It is much more interesting to talk to someone I found out to my surprise. One person was so funny, I was just laughing and laughing..and the sculptured prims were fantastic. So I think LL is doing the right thing in the best way they know how. The private info is a problem and as I said the best solution is to just not be age verified. There is porn elsewhere so if the balance is between accessing porn (which you can get elsewhere) and giving LL sensitive info (which has real problems) I would have a hard time understanding why cartoon sex would be so important to someone. Don't they have friends in SL? Other things they enjoy doing?

I do think that some people protest too much and I'm not sure why?

Personally, I protest because I've already been here as a paying member for almost three years... and now they want to make me pay another fee to verify that I should be here at all. And I still haven't seen any confirmation of whether this 'nominal fee' will be one time only or monthly.

LL got itself into this mess (and angered a lot of residents) by removing age verification, and now they're making the mess worse (and making a lot of us angrier) by trying to put it back in a really questionable way.

voice chat isnt something i'm against i actually look forward to it and think it will make
life easier and fun in SL, BUT just voice chat alone is going to have a big effect on SL.
but thats not for this thread might start another one about that.

i protest about unfair treatment and i class being made to pay to give my sensative peronal details that could easily be used for identity theft to a 3rd party i dont even know as unfair, also considering the only reason SL is as popular as it is is because it IS an " Adult Playground " hence why Adult content is such a big thing in SL and as soon as you limit people from accessing it things are surely going to go down hill.

It will not keep the kiddes out, It will keep out the kids too stupid to grab the parents wallet and use thier information. Locks are for honest people. This will do nothing but put alot of peoples vital personal information at risk.


Rox

LOL @ all the porno devient's who are panicing right now , all the pedophiles all closing account's ... can you hear them clicking ? hahaha