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How old are you?
Easy question to answer, I'm 27 in Real Life, August is the same in Second Life and July's about 24ish.
Prove It!
A little harder to do, I'm not going to throw in a photocopy of my Passport or Driving licence on the internet, that would be foolish, infact that would be damn right careless of me. Nor am I going to willfully submit any personal information about myself to a company I have only just heard about on the basis that I'm not as old as I say I am.
With me so far? No? I'll continue.
I'm not an SL hater, nor am I one of those people who bitch about Second Life but play it anyway. I'm a fan, (and I'm not a Linden, I have been accused of this and it hurt  ) and I travel SL a lot and I've put up with a lot of stuff disapearing and the glitches and the Sunday Lag hell just like the rest of you.
But I'm European, like a few people on SLHockey I'm required to pay VAT on my land holdings (and my premium membership) and I'm subject to british law aswell as US law aswell (it seems) to EU legislation. This gets complex, for while I'm legally within my rights to go to the corner shop and buy a lottery ticket I'm not legally allowed to do that here. And while I'm legally allowed to get my wife to dress up in a school uniform and er...well let's just say this becomes a grey area in the virtual world. But I still love the place, I'm still here and I will be (hopefully) for some time.
What's this got to do with Age Verification?
I'm getting there, in America there's probably some law stating that you're allowed to use your passport, driving license, social security number etc to prove your age through a third party online, it's probably somewhere in the list. In England...it's a grey area to let this information out to third parties, in Germany it is against the law.
In the EU (which is where England and Germany both have a say) it's against the law for a party outside the EU to hold information like this unless you are accused of some major terrorist act or are known to be a "dangerous flight risk". It's also difficult to see the point.
I use a credit card to pay my monthly tier and membership, I use to use Paypall but there were problems with a server a while ago and the credit card was easier. Surely this means I'm over 18 right? wrong!
Because now a debit card can be used and you only have to be 16 to use them. DAMN!
So what do we do? Well first off we (us in the EU) try to do it anyway...then it doesn't work...mainly because the information the US has on us is WOEFULLY outdated.
Is there an easy way out of this quagmire? Cause I remember reading the TOS at one point, and it specifically said I had to be 18 or over. And it told me that anything I did in SL I was liable for, not Linden Labs. And that as soon as I got off the starter island I would be in effect in a virtual world owned, run, created by other users just like me. All liable for what they put up and for verifying their own age.
Why have things taken such a step back? What major things are stopping us..?
This post may have just rambled a bit...but I felt the need to just ramble on this subject...giving this information out is dangerous in RL, let alone around what is a glorified computer game...think twice before registering, think thrice and ask yourself are you sure you want to submit something this personal to a company that has had questions asked over it selling information to other party's before?
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Being an old fella..
What is the purpose of age verification? Maybe I'm missing something. Why would any resident do it, is there some benefit or penalty?
I've read the blogs but they don't really explain it. From LL: "Age Verification is the latest of a number of tools and services to help Residents control and manage their own Second Life experiences. As we’ve blogged several times before, age verification is strictly voluntary for Residents and landowners. Residents who do not choose to age-verify and don’t visit land marked by the landowner as restricted to age-verified Residents, will see no difference in their Second Life experiences."
I don't get it! |
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From what I've been gathering... eventually sims and/or land rated "mature" (for whatever reason, most likely sexual content) will become 18-and-over only, to protect those under 18 from potentially harmful material.
Of course if you age-verify, you'll be able to be at those places.
And since the TOS says you have to be 18 to even sign up for the main grid, you should be able to get in those places anyway.
So why are we being asked to age-verify again? :/
And if they kick me off for NOT giving them my credit card, driver's license, birthdate, names of closest living relatives, shoe size or whatever info THEY deem important, so be it.
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Age verification shifts legal liability from LL to the individual users, in case of lawsuits over content inappropriate for minors. The classic, pass the buck scenario. |
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And since the TOS says you have to be 18 to even sign up for the main grid, you should be able to get in those places anyway.
So why are we being asked to age-verify again? :/
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My thoughts exactly! |
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| Yeah, also some other countries do not allow their identity to be over the internet like that. And how can we trust LL from being hacked..again? |
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| Montecore Babcock wrote: |
Age verification shifts legal liability from LL to the individual users, in case of lawsuits over content inappropriate for minors. The classic, pass the buck scenario. |
But when we agree to the TOS we're already stating that we ARE over 18 and that any liability for things we do in SL will come down to the users.
I think Robin once famously said "We (Linden Labs) want to have as little as possible to do with the running of Second Life"
Which I think means they want to do the tech stuff...and let users create their own world...this was surely the point!
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| When it comes down to it, I think LL will not pull through with the age verification process..Too many ways of them getting sued. Too many users that do not trust using their credit card numbers on the net. Also countries that SL have reached do not allow the usage of their identity on the net to be exposed like that. In the end No I dont think they will. |
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