SLEXCHANGE in danger of seizure??

In light of recent developments with wagering in Second Life, I was wondering that since LL is apparently deeming L$ currency in terms of the newly enacted internet gambling law,
--evidently the issue is with the servers being based in San Francisco, and the exchange of US dollars to L$ and back again,--( athough I take issue that since the creation of the game gambling has taken place and it stands to reason that maybe their financial institutions as well are based out of San Franciso) thereby violateing existing California Gambing Laws against profiting from gambling in California at the time, henceforth opening themselves up to lawsuits from residents who suffered gambling losses in the past, since they knowingly allowed and aided a criminal enterprise. but I digress---

Are they also researching and taking steps to protect the slexchange from falling under violations of money laundering and newly enacted anti terrorism laws? per LL statements on the website

Second Life has its own unit-of-trade, the Linden Dollar. Residents use their Linden Dollars to pay for goods and services provided by other Residents. The Linden Dollar can also be exchanged for U.S. Dollars and other foreign currencies on a number of different websites, including right here via the LindeX exchange.

The LindeX buyer's and seller's fees are not related to billing and trading limits, they are fixed and everyone is subject to the same fee schedule. Only the rolling 24 hour and rolling 30 day limits vary.

These limits exist so that we can better accommodate the needs of our Residents while mitigating our fraud risk

appears to me that the US$ amount for both daily and monthly limits at the higher levels are over the amounts allowed by law unless a myriad of forms were completed, does this happen? Are they in complete compliance with federal foriegn currency transactions regarding every country their users reside in?

My head hurts --

good thing I live in Las Vegas-- time to cash out and go to the Strip

lindeX--- whatever the hell they call it

SLExchange is a website where people either trade digital wares for other digital wares (Linden Dollars, which are no currency) or sell digital wares (either L$ or other items) for real currency. It's the same kind of service that is offered by Renderosity, ContentParadise and other websites that allow content creators to sell their selfmade digital wares intended for use in a certain 3D application. I don't see what that has to do with money laundering or even terrorism?

Once more folks...

LL has not officially said the linden dollar has real value and is a legal currency. Unless and until LL officially offers to buy them from you, I believe they fail to meet that criteria. What LL has acknowledged is that many people consider the linden dollar to be valuable. LL itself considers them worthless, and won't give you even a three dollar bill for a million linden dollars.

What?

Linden Lab considers my lindens money enough to pay my tier with, and to cash out using Pay-Pal, checks, etc.

coco

Really? I thought everyone paid their tier in US$. Linden Lab offers a service that helps you to sell your Linden Dollars for US$ to other residents, who, unlike Linden Lab, consider them valuable. From the proceeds you can then pay your tier.

OK. But LL also helps themselves by manufacturing hundreds of thousands of lindens out of thin air to sell to residents, who, unlike LL, consider them valuable.

coco

Yup. They sell us something absolutely worthless. Food for thought there *Grins*

~Jessy

Yeah, since when can you pay your Tier in L$? My friend lost his account because they wouldn't take the Premium fees from his L$ balance.

LL calls L$ a unit-of-trade so it is like buying stocks, not currency.

Just like stocks. As the investor, you assume the risk of your purchase.

That's true. Everything LL sells to residents is basically worthless. Land as well as monopoly money. LL keeps ownership and only temporarily allows you to use the sold (?) wares, as long as they deem fit and whenever the servers happen to be up (there is no guarantee that the servers are accessible either). It's all a bit shady, but so far it works

Obviously not. For if they were worthless I would still be able to sit down at a poker table in SL and play with all my friends that I met there over the last years.

And the point of this thread is right on the money, pun intended. You can launder money through SL or send $5000 to Achmed Terrorist just buy buying Linden dollars with one currency in one country, transfering it to another avatar, and selling it out in another for a different currency.

I really wonder how large the largest L$ accounts are and just who they belong too. It certainly is not my piddly 100K.

Dave, can you show me the section in the new policy that deems Linden Dollars to be a Currency? I've Read it through a few times and don't see any such Section. Perhaps the copy i got off the linden Blog is somehow Flawed, or incomplete.

Angel.

Let's say you invite all your friends and neighbours and everyone else who'd like to come for a poker game. You even advertise your poker evenings in the local newspaper. You sell beer coasters as poker chips to your guests and run a game with high stakes. Would that be legal in the USA? I highly doubt it. But that doesn't make a currency of beer coasters.

thee us law that has sparked ll to issue the change the policy is based upon sites like pokerstars.net, golden palace.com etc actual gambling sites that store your us dollars in an account for your gambling use . LL does nothing like that in fact as others have said its useless, so I state again they are no more guilty of illegal activity then they were before the passage of the law ll L$would only fall under the US classifiation of poker chips or tokens if they are solely used for gaming-- thats why you cant use RL casino tokens in a retail outlet. They are either currency or not -- no gray area and i apologize for the name error to everyone

LINDEX--- where you can easily buy and sell US DOLLARS via a "simple conversion" capped out at US$40,000 a day for "preferred sellers" I think I could make a pretty good case for a grand jury

Money laundering works best when no one notices the movement of funds. Considering the exchange rate of Linden Dollars to USD, any money laundering attempts would be very obivious to LL. If a single transaction of a few billion or trillion $L were to occur, I'm very sure LL would notice. LL would most likely assume fraud or theft and investigate.

For a sum as small as 5 grand, why even bother with SL? If I wanted to secretly transfer that much to someone, I could just buy $5000 worth of money orders. Buying money orders does not require ID verification. Setting up a SL account and using SL reveals an easily traced IP address. Even if that IP address is dynamic, all the feds have to do is go to your ISP with a warrant (or no warrant if Bush has his way) and track your activity.

Im just mad too taken all the fun out of it, well the money too lol -- but heres my thing, you have to have policies & procedures in compliance with Govt commerce Regs starting with as little as US$2500 --unfortunately you cant pick and chose which laws are relevant to you, they are all equal. IF as a terrorist I laundered the US$80,000 dollars needed to destroy and kill innocents, would anyone be consoled by well if it was $90,000 IM sure LL would have caught it!!

I suppose you have never heard of bouncing off someone else ip address/ sexondly have you ever tried to buy 5000 nin money orders it will take a long time. It would be much easier to instantly do it via via the internet---what a concept --no witnesses either

Ok, I'll admit that one could find an unsecured wi-fi connection. But 5 grand isn't a huge sum of money. I could raise that much in money orders in less than a day. The secret is to get help and purchase from multiple locations. No big deal.

only for itself with no fund transfers and being held for interrest... if only LL wasn`t borked with paypal payments...

Try using Lindens in a retail outlet in the same fashion as the Poker chips you describe. In casinos, you can use their chips in the bar, and in similar circumstances IN THEIR WORLD But No Where Else can they be used as Currency Just like Lindens used at lindex, or the SLExchange. And as for Lindex, you can Trade Lindens for USD, or USD for Lindens in the fashion you describe, but that doesn't mean Anything at all, The Lindens are Still a Game Token, no matter how much you spent on them, or how much you received when you Cashed out.
Now, How about that Linden Ruling i asked for? I Still can only Find the "Incomplete" version' that doesn't say ANYTHING about Lindens being a Currency either by Statement or Inference.

Angel.