Responsibilty and Protection

I seem to remember the age verification issue being sparked by rumbles about LL being held responsible for entry to the main grid by minors, and I think we can all agree that all reasonable steps should be taken to achieve this.
I personally disagree with the proposed use of a relatively unknown independent agency and in my opinion verification by means of credit or debit card information should be sufficient. Far too much emphasis is being placed on the suppliers (LL) and content creators in SL to ensure non-entry to minors, much more responsibility needs too be placed at the doors of parents, after all if a minor manages to acquire the needed card they are free to explore far more unsavoury areas of the internet. It is ultimately up to parents and guardians to accept the responsibility and protect their charges from harm, there is a wide selection of software to help them. Enforcement agencies, if they establish ‘reasonable care’ on the part of the vendor, need to come down hard if they find that the parents of the minor failed in their duty to protect.

Good points. Very good in fact. Parents do need to watch their children more. I 100% agree with you. On the other hand... You have places like MySpace which has been faced with some rather ugly things in the past year due to adults seeking children and such and have come under the eye of the goverment because of it. As for the company thats going to be doing this check, I think SL needs to say who it is so that people can check the company out first to see what their track record is. I see no problem with that and maybe they will not sure however I still think the age check is a good move for SL.

I also agree completely. Having verified payment on file should be quite sufficient to establish that reasonable care was taken over an issue that is frankly not very important amd not LL's responsibility in the first place.

I think SL right now is doing alot to cover its ass so to speak. They have had alot going on in the last year... First the FBI is in SL, then the crack down on casinos, now the age verification. And I hear alot of talk about taxing and not just from the U.S. goverment either. Hell I hear one country forget which one is even thinking of taxing Lindens before your turn them into cash!

SL is just dotting their I's and crossing their T's and protecting their ass. Can't blame them for that.

My thought was that if LL required a cc verification (not necessarily payment) the need for an outside agency would be avoided. Thankyou Bamboo, a good point.

Well thats a good point but I think these type of companies do alot more tracking then what SL does just with a credit card. They will track your hash, IP, and tons more. Also information is limited on how many times it can be used and more. There is alot more they do then just the basic run of a credit card.

The problem with this is that credit cards are becoming more and more irrelevant as a means for age verification. VISA and Mastercard issuers market credit cards to minors these days.

I also believe there is more to this than simply verifying age of majority. It is also about verifying identity. Welcome to the Second Life off the future. We'll have 7,000,000 registered users very shortly. Concurrency will continue to climb. With this many people able to play around with a virtual currency so easily converted into real money, the potential for fraud, money laundering, and other illegal activities is enormous. I think this is an absolutely necessary and unavoidable step toward securing our virtual economy. The mass exodus will not begin when this system goes live. The mass exodus will begin when the economy has become so corrupt that they are forced to shut down RISK, and discontinue the ability to sell Linden Dollars.

Errm.... And a credit card is something one can get without being verified by organisation who is alllowed and have means to do so (<- banks mainly over here)?

I would say a credit card is perfect mean for indentification, it has a direct link to RL information in matters of fraud and alike.... but as long such is not needed it is well protected by the involved (bank) Party.

Morwen/

Hi Morwen - it's Jig - we seem to meet here!
But one comment to throw out to all of you - I didnt join SL Adult to mix with teens and children. SL sells itself as an adult world. Now they are starting to promote the idea of a mixed population including immature teens who have little or no REAL world experience or sensibilities. What will they say when they meet a gay couple or even a Neko Cat like me and my Neko Cat partners?
I have no children of my own in real - SL is offering itself as a "safe" baby sitting service on the web by starting to make this suggestion.
I am NOT a babysitter. I dont want to talk to children. I want an ADULT world for adult activities. What do others think?
When I wake up I might start a thread on this.
And the amount of money I put on my credit cards - well, if I was a youth - I would be a very rich one indeed and look for far more exciting real world activities! For me Credit Card information should be more than enough for any company to have.

A credit card is also something a minor can get. There goes age verfication then, doesn't it?

I was not talking about age indentification, but about indentification of the person. But when it comes down it, my credit card company knows that I was born Februari 17th, 1965.... so now we have it again?

Morwen.

Not really. Your credit card issuer doesn't provide your DOB to Linden Lab, or any other information for that matter. The very foundation of using a credit card for age verification relies on the false assumption that if one has a credit card, one is of majority. This was mostly true in an age gone by. It is untrue today.

And yet for many big companies (as Sony Online Entertainment, NCPlay, EA and others) is enough proof.

Anyway, why they ever started to give credit cards to minors beats me big time (apart of making money from it). Debit cards ok, but credit cards?

Morwen.

I completely agree. It borders on immoral. But that's a topic for another time, and another place

Well, I do have a child, a daughter of 18.... with no interest of the SL main grid at all .

We raise her very open. Being gay is as normal to her as being hetero. What a Neko is she may not know, but I think she will address that very open as well (if she would come to SL).

When she was younger she knew already what SL was about. How? We told her. I mean, I am not going to wait until she not around and log into SL from a dark corner in our house. Sure you adept to the current situation, but that is all.
As said we raised her very open. "Normal" nudity is very common to her. Sex is nothing strange to her. I mean she must have heard my partner and me at times. And we talked a lot about it... in educating way, but also as woman to woman... or in a giggling way. And I know she has been sexually active (but rather this way with all the needed measures taken, then secretly without knowing what to think and to take care of).

Having saying all that, would I like to have a mixed grid? No, the main grid was meant for adults, it should stay that way.

Morwen.

Are you convinced the system will be so foolproof that if you give me the little bits of information, it will reject me trying to verify your RL identity as my own?

You're right that it's not really about age verification, or how effective it is. LL isn't required to make sure that every resident is a legal adult, they're only required to have reasonable measures in place to prevent it and they'll just go as far as the bare minimum lawyers/officials tell them to go.

At the iceskating rink, they ask that you turn in some identification in order to rent iceskates, because it's more convenient than a big deposit. They usually hire teens to do that, and it only takes one of those to start writing down numbers/making copies and distributing those and dozens a teens can happily assert a fake identity and the system won't know any better.

The whole reason identity theft even exists is because companies happily let you assert an identity through whatever process but which doesn't require you to actually show up in person and lay out all those documents on the spot.