1. Without any doubt, yes. So people can not worry about having "cyborg" sex with minors if that cover soon to blow over them. Same deal with Linden Labs from being dragged into another minor cases over again.

Also, I've noticed more more people are acting like kids when LL wasn't checking on sign up anymore.

Posted at 10:28PM on May 4th 2007 by Nacon

2. Sure. LL needs a legal CYA. SL's seamier side has been drawing increasing scrutiny from the media. They are increasingly (and rightly) worried about legal assaults on the grid. This can help, at least, offer them a legal fig leaf in the face of this likelihood.

Posted at 10:53PM on May 4th 2007 by Luciftias Neurocam

3. Nope. I've paid over 1500 USD in L, had drinks with the Lindens where they've seen me be ID'd by bartenders, and submitted to a $100 background check just to be on the Teen Grid. Do I really need to show that I'm 18 after all of that?

Posted at 10:50PM on May 4th 2007 by moo Money

4. This is a good idea for a couple of reasons ... it's an added layer of liability protection on Linden Lab by putting the responsibility upon landowners to flag their content, and it also helps morally sensitive Residents who won't want to be "triggered" by stumbling into an adult establishment in-world. With companies like MySpace and others being hounded to start verifying age, this certainly couldn't be a matter of "if," but "when."

Posted at 11:25PM on May 4th 2007 by Triste Bertrand

5. I already posted my comments before Linden Lab turned off comments here: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/04/age-and-indentity-verification-in-second-life/#comment-263117

It's a bummer that there are two angles that can be spun about 'protecting the children'-- one is actual and the other political. There are way too many underlying issues that won't get seen because the superficial "save the children" statements will lead becaue we are *supposed* to say and agree with that.

I also hope folks would question its potential effectiveness. A good number of studies out there have been done noting that it's not actually adult content that's the threat to youth, it's the predatory behavior of people engaged in social engineering. But most regulations and legislation go for the nipple play.

That's much different than a clever predatory social engineer, isn't it?

Posted at 11:54PM on May 4th 2007 by Eric Rice

6. This would probably seem less silly if they didn't already have a peculiar mix of PG and Mature sims next to each other. As it is now you can be standing in a PG sim and look across a border into scenes that are quite definable as Mature. What I mostly expect to see on the mainland is just an additional set of ban-lines or some such other indicator putting up additional walls making it hard to get around but not necessarily stopping exposure to anyone that doesn't opt to be identified by this process. They are making a general mistake in assuming that there is "common sense" or any sort of shared definition that all users would agree on for a given content type. And then what is the purpose of having PG and Mature sims, are we going to get an option to set it to Nuetral. Bah back to trying to get them to straighten out my billing.

Posted at 12:05AM on May 5th 2007 by Shawk Pertwee

7. I'll repost here the comment I left otn he other thread:

I am really pissed off at them cause of this

why should I have to pay to have other people's children be babysat?

they don't want their young ones to see the naughty stuff grown ups do? there are plaenty of softwares and physical ways to prevent them from doing that, many of them quite cheap or even free

Posted at 12:26AM on May 5th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu

8. This will likely repercuss in unanticipated ways. On the one hand, LL is offering a defacto cession of part of the main grid to the proscribed cohort on PG areas. I personally favor age-integration, but regardless, under-18 players are and long have been part of SL, for better as well as worse, despite their clandestine status. Don't-ask-don't-tell is a duplicitous scheme, and that is what has been the equivalent order since CC indentity was nixed. If LL truly wanted to simply impliment age segregation, they would reinstate CC registration. This is an admission that much of the main grid is allotted to under-18 persons.

Another dimension: verified players now will be essentially tagged for "smut", reducing privacy. Unverfied players, meanwhile, will be labelled suspect of their actions and exiled from much of the grid. Aside from being practically futile (come on, kids find a way), this will only create cultural rankings in SL, building a higher wall between statuses.

And yes, what counts? This puts LL and parcel owners in much more of a position of needing to be morality police. Never a good sign in my book.

These ambiguities aside, civil libertarians rightly shudder. These requirements are beyond reasonable for online age verification. If SL has aspirations to be a platform more than a game, it will have to make the case that "protecting children" is best done by their parents.

Posted at 12:47AM on May 5th 2007 by Shufei Zenith

9. CC registration alas, did not reduce the number of underage people turning up on the main grid.

"Mom? Where's your credit card? I need it to sign up for a game."

"How much does it cost?"

"It's free. I just need one to sign up."

"Alright, dear. It's in my purse, on the dresser."

Some of them were even able to pass subsequent age-checks. So, no. Credit card requirements didn't work - I'm not even convinced that it slowed them down.

But absolutely, yes, the parents are the responsible party in all cases. You just can't force them to care.

Posted at 12:51AM on May 5th 2007 by Tateru Nino

10. Tateru wrote:
"But absolutely, yes, the parents are the responsible party in all cases. You just can't force them to care."

the thing is they start to care (or at least act a bit as if they do) when they are suing the companies for not baby-sitting their children for free

Posted at 2:14AM on May 5th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu

11. Well, having a credit card/account in one country and living in another is no problem here in the EU. LL's administration can barely handle the fact that not everyone in the world use a ZIP code.
The age verification is bound to be US-centric, and as stated earlier, only 1/3 of the residents are in the US.

So the rest of the world will have to go through this claptrap because of the risk of offending "morally sensitive" (now that's an euphemism) people from a media culture where it's fine for a kid to see people's brains blown out, but a bare nipple causes a national outrage?

Posted at 3:07AM on May 5th 2007 by Sin Trenton

12. Now I'm wishing I'd included a tight shot of a nipple with this posting.

Posted at 3:08AM on May 5th 2007 by Tateru Nino

13. GREAT! Once they iron out the details. Conceptually it's a positive step. Nothing stopping them integrating the teen grid and main grids now. Only one question, is gambling an "adult" activity?

Posted at 5:26AM on May 5th 2007 by Paskis Robinson

14. Just wondering: What will the rest of the world think of this development - that joining the thing called Second Life requires a solid proof of you being adult? It might be just me, but I'd guess the first thoughts won't be about the Lindens being very good and caring about children but rather the world containing mostly "Mature" content.
Worried parents and sensitive individuals aside, could this dis-encourage, say, educational organizations or businesses from joining SL and turning towards environments with controlled content?

Posted at 7:06AM on May 5th 2007 by Yoe May

15. If Linden don't believe I'm an adult - STOP TAKING MONEY FROM MY CREDIT CARD!

If they are, as they imply, taking money from people they suspect to be minors then aren't Linden the ones breaking the law?

This new position basically translates as "It's OK to take money off kids illegally, but not to let them see 'dirty' cartoons"

Good luck defending that one guys....and you may have to.

Posted at 8:07AM on May 5th 2007 by Eri'

16. I actually had to sit down and think about this for a good while and talked to others prior to posting.

The good thing about this is that, in many US jurisdictions, corruption of minors doesn't need to be intentional. This may give residents some knowledge about who they are talking to and to avoid prosecution.

The other good is that people using unverified alts will be prevented from entering mature areas as well. If I create an alt and I verify it under this scheme, nothing should go wrong. If a griefer, or anyone else, lies about his or her name, age and creates a fake e-mail to create another free basic account, then this new account is unverifiable under the new rules. So that is another plus.

Another good is that if the main grid is integrated, this will provide a way to determine the teenagers from the adults.

The bad is a much longer list. The first issue is the higher costs of verification is not being disclosed, only that it is a larger fee. Looking at the newb population, would they want to check out the adult content areas if they have to pay first? How would they know that they would like to visit those areas if they have to pay first? Think of all the free sex areas. These areas would be vastly depopulated if a verification system was required first to enter them. This would also affect any adult club's business plans. If a gnub wants to use an Adult club for camping purposes, then, in effect, a gnub has to pay first in order to camp there.

Related to the first point, is how much effort are people willing to go through to provide verification? The document list is somewhat long and would someone be willing to provide real life details to an unknown third party which includes information that makes it ripe for identity theft. The details of what is required and who is going to be doing it is not being revealed. Additionally, the non-US residents may be asked for passport numbers. This, not only seems invasive, but dangerous and there is always the possibility that not everyone has passports or driver's licenses.

Third, it says adult content must be flagged. But while content of a sexual or violent nature must be flagged, the minimum is not mentioned. Everyone could point to the combat sims or the strip clubs. But what about land where people are having sex behind closed doors? Those doors are not an impediment to people looking in. So, if I'm in my apartment and I'm having sex with my boyfriend, do I have to have the land tagged as adult content? Will the landlords have to change their covenants to reflect this? Also, what if, not a land owner or a resident on the sim is creating adult content, but a visitor is creating it? Will this need to be tagged as well? If a Sim is looked at as a website, then the sim owner is responsible for all of its content.

Fourth, this feels like Linden labs is abdicating responsibility to another party and asking residents to pay a price for it. Additionally, the Lindens are saying that they can't do anything about this and other people will have to.

Fifth, unfortunately, I feel like this is another example of the Linden's adding a pay aspect to Second Life. If one policy brings about the end of camping, and another policy requires a fee to be verified, and if that fee is also large enough, then we'll see people encouraged to use the Lindex to bring currency in and people signing up with payment information. I've said it in other posts on other sites, but it looks like the Lindens are trying to make Second Life run more like There.

In summation, while bringing in younger players and making sure that the law is enforced is a good thing, the other consequences of this new system are not being discussed and will greatly affect second life.

Posted at 9:37AM on May 5th 2007 by Jessica Holyoke

17. I have no probem with the additional flagging and lock downs, BUT I am not giving an unknown third party that amount of data, anyone can forge an identity with the right info and LL has listed three times what its needed to do that.

Posted at 10:13AM on May 5th 2007 by Heiko Decatur

18. People, think. Stop and think.

1) You need to understand the motivation for this. It is civil liability. The process does NOT have to work. Actual age verification is not the goal. The goal is to have a process. Simply that. Have a process that can be pointed at by LL in a court of law to show that they made an effort and thereby cannot be called reckless or negligent. It's about money. Their legal counsel has terrified them about something -- probably the ageplay issue. This is most prominently clear in the comment saying "land owners are marally and legally responsible for knowing what is happening on their land and flagging it." That is absolutely hilarious and when plaintiff's attorney (parents of some child who got abducted and molested because of contacts made on SL) gets hold of them for trying to claim they are blameless WHEN IT IS THEIR SERVERS . . . their LLC shield on personal assets may be pierced by the judge for such brazen attitude.

2) I hope anyone signing up for this adult verification for access to porn -- which is what it is -- does not plan to ever run for public office, or work as a teacher, or work as a counselor, EVER, because the fact they signed up for this will be in this database forever. Oh! Wait, excuse me, RobinLinden said they would not store the data. And maybe she said the 3rd party (integrity.aristotle.com) would not store the data (though they sell it). Yes, an employee of an LLC said this and how binding does that make it? Where is the legal document from Linden Lab saying that they will assume civil responsibility and stipulate their own guilt if either they or that 3rd party DOES store or compromise this embarrassing data? I guess I missed that part. A promise from an employee means what . . . without financial teeth behind the promise? Will that promise and acknowledgment of financial penalties to themselves be in the new TOS?

3) People, stop talking about the whether or not the system will be effective in excluding kids because THAT IS NOT THE PURPOSE. The purpose is civil liability avoidance. They don't care if the system works. They only care about outsourcing to a "professional" age verifier so that they can show that to a judge -- and foist all financial responsibility onto someone else.

Posted at 10:26AM on May 5th 2007 by Obsucre Doodad

19. I'm 100% ok with Eri' @ 15. What is better adult check that a credit card? As EU citizen, i cannot consider a private entity holds other personal data than this. LL should consider SL is global and can interfere with local regulations and, as Eri' stated, a credit card implies 18 yrs old. So NO, i disagree.

Posted at 1:34PM on May 5th 2007 by Mark Hinkle

20. I feel I need to apologise, I over reacted and didn't noticed it was 10L$ and not ten US dollars...I still feel a bit upset but not as much as I was...

Posted at 11:32AM on May 5th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu