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SecondLife begins adding Age Verification
Posted by Nanci Barthelmess on 5 December 2007
Today SecondLife released a Release Candidate client that begins to use the Age Verification system that we’ve heard quite a bit about in the past (but actually nothing at all about in the last several months). However there are technical and legal issues that prevent me from passing my personal information to Linden Labs at this point, and I have to recommend nobody else does either.
First of all when I click the link to go to the Age Verification page I get a lovely popup warning informing me that the security certificate is invalid. I won’t get into all the technobabble about what this means, but I will say is that the page quite simply can not be trusted with your personal information at this time. Strike one.
Add to this the fact that there is no link on the page to allow me to find out who their partner is in Age Verification or to read their privacy policy. Strike two. The web page does say we can read a FAQ on the wiki, but I was just at the wiki and saw no way to fin dthe FAQ in question on the main page. I could probablt spend the better part of an hour trying to track it down (or possibly even less time), but if you’re going to refer me t a page in the wiki how about giving us a link so we can find it without having to search through your wiki to find it?
But let’s add insult to injury, shall we? Last we heard SL was using Integrity/Aristotle for their age verification system, and Aristotle got exposed for selling their database to political parties here in the states.
Sorry, guys, but I can’t confirm who your partner is for age verification and that means I don’t know them, don’t trust them, and there’s no way in hell they’re getting any of my personal info, even if it’s just the last 4 digits of my social and my address.
To make matters worse, several people are reporting that they’re trying to provide their true personal info to SL and they’re being told the information is invalid. So SL know better than even the person holding the documents that the person isn’t who they claim to be. Foul ball, still strike two.
There’s legal issues, too
I don’t know about in the States, but in the European Union it is illegal to give your personal information like this to a 3rd party via a website, especially to a company outside of the EU. So on one hand SL says they’re trying to
cooperate and comply with all of the governments where their residents live, yet they’re asking the majority of SL residents (who actually live in Europe, by the way) to violate their local laws. Will they pay the legal penalties meted out to their EU residents who get caught violating the applicable laws? Something tells me they won’t. Strike three, SecondLife. Age Verification is out, at least in my book.
Luckily my store isn’t in a sim that I own and I don’t think it will get flagged as being Adult. If that happens I won’t even be able to get to the store since I have no intention of providing proof that I’m over 30, let alone over 18. However I may have to remove the adult toys vendor from my store at some point. This is actually fine with me because it’s getting fewer sales than I had hoped so if it comes down to losing that vendor or closing my store I will pull the vendor.
I just wonder why SL is pushing this through after so much silence on the matter and since their latest additions (voice and the new search) are in fact still having some issues for a lot of people. One thing I know for certain is that one resident has been paying for several sims for quite some time (they’ve been in SL for three years), yet since SL is starting to roll out Age Verification despite some very clear legal and technical issues, plus the fact that the vast majority of its residents say they want no part of it, is already contacting SL and getting rid of her sims. I can’t say I blame her. I’m just glad the sim my store is in isn’t one of theirs.
Mostly Offcourse said
The only good thing I see coming of this is cheap land being available as former business owners liquidate their SL investment. SL has always claimed that the main grid is for ADULTS only – yet everyone knows teens (and younger?) are all over the grid. The place for age-verification is on the SIGN-UP page – NOT after the fact as an “optional” service. This policy basically says to me “yea we know not everyone is of legal age here so to cover our legal asses we will now implement this lame-ass policy that oh by the way is illegal in most countries”. The reason people cannot get verified is the 3rd party company has to match the info you provide against EXISTING DATABASES they ALREADY OWN. Scary. Steer clear and hope you never run into a sim where the owner has implemented banning non-verified avatars. If the majority ignore this, it will never become an issue for most.
Nanci Barthelmess said
You’re absolutely right, Mostly. This should have been done at sign up. There’s no really good way to use this to get the kiddies off the adult grid now that they’re already there. Age Verification is certainly not the way to do it, since so many of us don’t trust Integrity/Aristotle with our personal information.
I’m not to worried about being in a sim that bans non-verified avs. I figure if they do that then I honestly have no need to visit that sim. The main sim I was concerned about is the sim where I used to do some occasional dancing, but between the store and RL I haven’t even been there in weeks.
I’m actually surprised so many people are trying to get validated with the service in the first place. There are way too many red flags that get raised in my eyes.