1. What is being done by ESC with the search bot is somehow "forcing the hand of chance" and assuming a google-like engine won't make its blast thru SL without forcing either real and legitimate or otherwise feelings radically percieved as inherent to the private property shrine.

I disagree with Prokofy in all manner of ways but I'm glad he brought this up on his blog. Often an all-round debate only fuels these efforts on the part of a big large developer as well as kill them, given the shiness and how this was introduced. A mature developer discusses these large projects publicly, they did not, "ante" not "post".

SEACH is a sensible matter. ESC may have opted for a different, less sneaky approach, approach that testifies a lack of taste, disrespect for LL and a tendency at self-referencing themselves as the only power player in town.

A baby is born thru a series of shocks, is a known undeniable fact. ESC have it clear. The lack of proper communication IS NOT what i would expect from such brilliant developer.

Posted at 4:52PM on Apr 10th 2007 by starcomber Vig

2. "If you don't want to be spidered, ban the avatar "Grid Shepherd" or, make sure there's nothing for sale on your land."

Oh good. I mean, this is horribly unfair to those of us who want to set something for sale but want to make sure no one knows about it! If people find out I'm selling something, they might actually buy it! Bots like this may force me to click off the for sale button on items I don't want to sell! It's so unfair.

Posted at 4:23AM on Apr 11th 2007 by Gaius Goodliffe

3. I was expecting a search engine other than default Linden’s. It was inevitable. Through the whole history of internet search engines are important, profitable and authority building projects. That reason is enough for many attempts of new SE. Other one is community need for something better than what we have. To be honest, given search feature is almost to nothing, especially when compared to flatworld engines. But, for me it sounded reasonable that some of flatworld search systems will jump in.

Yesterday morning’s paranoia burst was a bit of overreaction but some facts have seen the light of the day at least for the moment. Search engines do scan data over the internet. It would be not much of a problem except because of draining resources of already laggy grid. But some features of Grid Shepherd are problematic:

Bot does not need to be on the same parcel as scanned object is. Using camera zoom function its range is 92 meters. So, land owners do not have the option similar to robots.txt in the flatworld. You can ban the bot from your property, but you cannot prevent it from scanning it. We are already running into skyboxes to keep away from other resident’s eyes, now there are scripted stalkers as well.

Shepherd is interested in commercial objects only. I know there is a profit in those, but what about sims, events, sandboxes, groups or anything else that is not commercial? It doesn’t deserve to be searched for? Services of SL are sometimes profit-oriented in such measure that it makes me sick.

Service’s default is that all of us wants to be scanned. If you don’t want your objects to be scanned you are free to go to the Shepherd’s page and opt-out, that is, to tell that you don’t want your objects to show up in the results. First thing, you can remove your stuff from the results shown but not from the database. Second, it would be normal to opt-in, i.e. to tell the service that you want to be listed. This way, you might not know that some of your items are for sale. Maybe it is your mistake but it happens. Maybe you don’t know there is an alternative search engine in the world, but you still don’t want it to scan through your house.

This last point leads to new discussions. There are two ways search engines work. First group are getting their data from users, you submit your web page or object to the engine. Second group use bots. Flatworld greatly benefited when crawlers came. But here we come to the point where flatworld and second life significantly differs. As Prokofy Neva pointed yesterday in the Herald: “You don’t have sex on or with a google page.” And it is a tough question. It is a question where is the line of privacy of lives that are based on public infrastructure like internet is. Something to bang our heads in the days to come.

Posted at 6:28AM on Apr 11th 2007 by dandellion Kimban

4. I personally believe this is a great tool and I'm not sure why some call it an invasion of privacy as it's simply showing items that are already available to the public in world. Let's be honest, search in Second Life sucks at the moment so this is clearly a good start. Congrats Electric Sheep!

Posted at 11:32AM on Apr 11th 2007 by Yo Brewster

5. This is absolutely appalling. Aside from the no consent, and possible violation of ToS for disclosure, it lists only items in my house, not the identical items, like my art, for sale in my shops, making it a double invasion of privacy and useless for business.

I've added Grid Shepherd to my ban list, will email my comments, I've IM'd and Abuse Reported him.

I'll be wary of any of their other products in the future too.

Posted at 8:12PM on Apr 11th 2007 by Montana Corleone

6. "I personally believe this is a great tool and I'm not sure why some call it an invasion of privacy as it's simply showing items that are already available to the public in world"

Because it is Yo Brewster. For instance, for various reasons, I don't tell people or give out where I live. This search tool does, and has listed only those items in my house, not a public place, and not the identical art or other items that I do have in my shops, which are public places.

I only know about this because a friend told me, otherwise I would not have known my private address was available to all and sundry. This can easily lead to harasment, and probably explains why my security orb has been kicking people.

This is ill thought out, without consent, disclosure against ToS and needs to be shut down right now.

Posted at 8:28PM on Apr 11th 2007 by Montana Corleone

7. It is done.

I think if you're going to offer a service to the community, you should tell the community beforehand. I see this as a little too much big brother and too little thought for how the community would perceive it. This has become a trademark of ESC in some ways.

I have opted out for the time being. And frankly, 'banning' doesn't do squat. TP Home doesn't either.

However, this is the future. It's here. It is a good thing applied thoughtlessly and without community buy-in. It *is* an invasion for many people, and ESC should reconsider how it rolls out new things in the future.

For that matter, so should Linden Lab. :-)

Posted at 10:48AM on Apr 12th 2007 by Nobody Fugazi

8. This is too invasive and a precedent should not be set based on one bot but potentially thousands more that will come in the future.

"Get off my land" and "opt in" spring to mind.

I'll be turning on Health and sitting on the porch with my shottie. :)

Fair game.

Posted at 3:20PM on Apr 12th 2007 by Timeless Prototype

9. Timeless Prototype: that's the best thing I've read in a *long* time. And spot on.. the perfect answer to any prospect of bot-invasion.

Eloise,

In the defence of this search tool, a lot of comparisons have been drawn between a bot-avatar collecting information, and widely used web-search tools like Google. One thing overlooked in this comparison is the fact that when a 2D web page or blog-type entry is created, it is normally done with full knowledge that the entry is going to be indexed and easily searchable.

When I leave objects in SL, my reference point *was* that I knew a few or many people could wander along and see that stuff, so it was never really private. If I want to keep it a little bit private, well I'd put it up 1km and your normal folks will miss it. But I never expected it to show up on some third-party search tool, available for all to see with the right search criteria.

Discussing this with a friend the other day, he pointed out to me: "I wonder if it is a generational thing. To me, growing up in a google world where everything is searchable and most private data is made up of 1’s and 0’s it wouldn’t even occur to me that my data wasn’t searchable or that some exploitive tool wouldn’t be made and the original experience wouldn’t be pushed in directions that I hadn’t intended."

When my bud sent me that note, I was immediately reminded of your recent article, Digital native or immigrant? ..and I wonder if those important points of reference subconsciously affect our reactions to this sort of news? Certainly other things seem to be influencing approval or disapproval, for example: am I a content creator wishing to sell my product; am I normally very immersed in the SL experience and therefore feel a strong connection to "my" things in-world; am I concerned about the growing presence in-world of a) Corporate entities and/or b) non-human controlled avatars, or do I see these things as part of the logical evolution of the platform?

All of these questions have relevance to each member of the SL community.. or perhaps, the SL population has outgrown the concept of being a wide (but closed) community, and is the reason why we see such things as: search-bots; loss of 'Profile' ratings; loss of 'First Land'; integration of 'voice'; and open sourcing of the viewer and ultimately the servers. These are just a few recent pointers to a fundamental shift in the development of the platform.

I feel like I have entered into 'Second Life' at the end of a particular phase, and the next phase is well and truly underway. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it will feel very uncomfortable, even threatening, to many.. and all the more so if unleashed by stealth, as the ESC search tool appears to have been.

Peace

Posted at 10:13AM on Apr 16th 2007 by Simondo Nebestanka

10. I tried to incorporate a link to your "Digital native or immigrant?" article but the html wasn't right..
For anyone who missed it, I think the article has relevance:
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/04/05/digital-native-or-immigrant-just-askin/

Cheers

Posted at 10:29AM on Apr 16th 2007 by Simondo Nebestanka

11. You know, I'd not thought of it in the digital native/immigrant terms. I wonder if you're on to something.

I also wonder from the opposite direction though. Many, not all but many, people make second homes in SL. We have the expression "An Englishman's home is his castle" over here (despite being a Welsh girl) with the implication (however inaccuarte in fact) that we're private in our homes. It strikes me that some amount of the complaining is that our homes are being invaded without consent and that is also a powerful meme in people, increasingly so as they get older in general, and I think independent of the digital native/immigrant status - in the sense that for generations as people have got older they've tended to be more houseproud and defensive of "their turf"

Posted at 4:17PM on Apr 16th 2007 by Eloise Pasteur