One nasty conspiracy theory regarding the TOS change

[Rommanno]

As you all know recently Second Life changed their TOS and sent letters out 3rd party exchangers demanding them to cease all Linden trading and remove ATM's immediatelly ignoring their own TOS rule of 30 day prior notice.

I know there's a lot of theories (greed, banking laws), but I have one more theory why they might be doing this. Userbase is probably declining during past years and there's probably more people selling Lindens than buying them. And it seems that Linden Lab wants to completelly take control of all Linden trade. This might sound far fetched, but could it be that some months from now we'll see an announcement:

"From now on all selling of Linden dollars on Lindex has been ceased. You will only be able to buy Linden dollars from now on." Maybe that would be a desperate way for Linden Lab to keep Second Life a bit longer - prevent people from cashing and force them to either forfeit their Lindens or spend them in SL. This would also mean that they wouldn't have to redeem any Lindens left when they will be closing Second Life down. Their TOS says that Lindens are not real money and are not redeemable from Linden Lab anyway. Hell, from their actions these past few days, it's clear that they no longer care about SL long-term or fear civil lawsuits, it's short terms gains now only from existing user base. This is why they added cheap ads on the Marketplace.

Just food for thought.

[LepreKhaun]

Please cut down on your coffee consumption. Linden Labs is simply reacting to recent changes in policy by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), an agency in the U.S. Treasury.. See the folowing for details:

 

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/virtual-currency-recent-federal-regulat-06978/

http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9504d124-b756-451d-8093-0ee1dd03c5e0

[Azanor]

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LepreKhaun wrote:

Please cut down on your coffee consumption. Linden Labs is simply reacting to recent changes in policy by

the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), an agency in the U.S. Treasury.

. See the folowing for details:

 

 

---

That policy change didn't happen last week. LL had enough time to improve Lindex's quality of service before the ToS change. There was a reason people prefered those third party exchanges over Lindex in the past. All this reaction to LL right now is not about their compliance to regulations. People react because LL took the services they use away, and didn't offer the similar options through Lindex. 

Luckily SL is free to connect. Consuming is an option, not a must.  

[LepreKhaun]

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Azanor wrote:

That policy change didn't happen last week. LL had enough time to improve Lindex's quality of service before the ToS change. There was a reason people prefered those third party exchanges over Lindex in the past. All this reaction to LL right now is not about their compliance to regulations. People react because LL took the services they use away, and didn't offer the similar options through Lindex. 

Luckily SL is free to connect. Consuming is an option, not a must.  

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What happened is a clarification of terms by FinCEN, and that was published a little over a week ago. This clarification (made necessary because of perceived abuses of BitCoin) is both definitive and restrictive and Linden Labs is obviously reacting on the conservative side to not run afoul of the USTreasury Dept.

 

To try to start a "conspiracy theory" as the OP does is simply a forum troll.

[Azanor]

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LepreKhaun wrote:

What happened is a clarification of terms by FinCEN, and that was published a little over a week ago. This clarification (made necessary because of perceived abuses of BitCoin) is both definitive and restrictive and Linden Labs is obviously reacting on the conservative side to not run afoul of the USTreasury Dept.

 

To try to start a "conspiracy theory" as the OP does is simply a forum troll.

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This issue was on the table before 2013, but if they are basing their decision on FinCen Guidance, its release date is March 18. Two months is enough time to start adding more payment options to Lindex, or improve process times. If they intended to do it, but still couldn't have completed the implementations, they could have just release a blog post about upcoming improvements along with the ToS change at least. 

Of course the conspiracy theories are silly, but when LL itself is not serious about how they handle their business, how serious do you expect it's userbase to be? 

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

A lot of this looks like the usual Linden incompetences, starting with inept customer communication. The website operation is less than stellar, and the payment systems are worse than the usual I see from US web retailers.

Last year, the biggest of the third-party exchanges turned over the equivalent of 38 million dollars. The fees, and the Buy-Sell spread, on the LindeX would be a very useful bit of extra income.

I really cannot see why they cannot follow their own 30-day rule on changes to the TOS.

[Rommanno]

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LepreKhaun wrote:

 

To try to start a "conspiracy theory" as the OP does is simply a forum troll.

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I was saying "conspiracy theory" more as a joke. Is it really unbelievable that Linden Lab might be planning to trap people's Lindens in the future?

[Ceka Cianci]

how long have these other exchanges been around?

a couple of years?

[LepreKhaun]

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Rommanno wrote:

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LepreKhaun wrote:

 

To try to start a "conspiracy theory" as the OP does is simply a forum troll.

---

I was saying "conspiracy theory" more as a joke. Is it really unbelievable that Linden Lab might be planning to trap people's Lindens in the future?

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Yes, it is not only unbelievable but publishing it as you did is suspect during this general upset over LL's recent decision.

[GothGirl Demonia]

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Rommanno wrote:

As you all know recently Second Life changed their TOS and sent letters out 3rd party exchangers demanding them to cease all Linden trading and remove ATM's immediatelly ignoring their own TOS rule of 30 day prior notice.

 

I know there's a lot of theories (greed, banking laws), but I have one more theory why they might be doing this. Userbase is probably declining during past years and there's probably more people selling Lindens than buying them. And it seems that Linden Lab wants to completelly take control of all Linden trade. This might sound far fetched, but could it be that some months from now we'll see an announcement:

 

"From now on all selling of Linden dollars on Lindex has been ceased. You will only be able to buy Linden dollars from now on." Maybe that would be a desperate way for Linden Lab to keep Second Life a bit longer - prevent people from cashing and force them to either forfeit their Lindens or spend them in SL. This would also mean that they wouldn't have to redeem any Lindens left when they will be closing Second Life down. Their TOS says that Lindens are not real money and are not redeemable from Linden Lab anyway. Hell, from their actions these past few days, it's clear that they no longer care about SL long-term or fear civil lawsuits, it's short terms gains now only from existing user base. This is why they added cheap ads on the Marketplace.

 

Just food for thought.

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Wait you mean I can't sell my L$ anymore through LindenX now I will have to obtain Tiers in PayPal WTF?

[Lucretia Brandenburg]

No, the OP was imagining a future change to the TOS. Lindex has not changed.

[Rommanno]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

how long have these other exchanges been around?

a couple of years?

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Well, Vriwox has been operating since 2007. I'm sure others are older than a couple of years as well.

[Dillon Levenque]

 

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Rommanno wrote:

As you all know recently Second Life changed their TOS and sent letters out 3rd party exchangers demanding them to cease all Linden trading and remove ATM's immediatelly ignoring their own TOS rule of 30 day prior notice.

I know there's a lot of theories (greed, banking laws), but

I have one more theory why they might be doing this. Userbase is probably declining during past years and there's probably more people selling Lindens than buying them.

And it seems that Linden Lab wants to completelly take control of all Linden trade. This might sound far fetched, but could it be that some months from now we'll see an announcement:

"From now on all selling of Linden dollars on Lindex has been ceased. You will only be able to buy Linden dollars from now on." Maybe that would be a desperate way for Linden Lab to keep Second Life a bit longer - prevent people from cashing and force them to either forfeit their Lindens or spend them in SL. This would also mean that they wouldn't have to redeem any Lindens left when they will be closing Second Life down. Their TOS says that Lindens are not real money and are not redeemable from Linden Lab anyway. Hell, from their actions these past few days, it's clear that they no longer care about SL long-term or fear civil lawsuits, it's short terms gains now only from existing user base. This is why they added cheap ads on the Marketplace.

Just food for thought.

---

 

The bolded part is the driving force behind your 'theory'. How on earth could there be more people selling Lindens than buying them? Unless I'm completely missing the boat (always a possibility with me), the only reason someone has for selling Lindens is that someone has a surplus.

The only way to acquire a surplus is to have a Linden income that exceeds Linden expenses, and the people who are in that position are a tiny minority of the general populace. I think that theory fails to leave the gate.

 

ETA: I've seen what purports to be the text of letters sent by LL to a couple of exchanges in other threads where this is being discussed. None of them demanded the exchanges 'cease all Linden trading' (although they did in fact require the removal of ATMs)

[GothGirl Demonia]

Well I doubt LL will change the cash out feature you know why?

Pay $4.08 USD thats what it was when I started SL on  the Teen Grid and first ever bought L$.

Then Cash Out get 3.80 USD or something thats per 1k who makes profit?

Linden Lab.

[Rommanno]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

 

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The bolded part is the driving force behind your 'theory'. How on earth could there be more people selling Lindens than buying them? Unless I'm completely missing the boat (always a possibility with me), the only reason someone has for selling Lindens is that someone has a surplus.

The only way to acquire a surplus is to have a Linden income that exceeds Linden expenses, and the people who are in that position are a tiny minority of the general populace. I think that theory fails to leave the gate.

 

ETA: I've seen what purports to be the text of letters sent by LL to a couple of exchanges in other threads where this is being discussed. None of them demanded the exchanges 'cease all Linden trading' (although they did in fact require the removal of ATMs)

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Facepalm. So you spend lindens inworld and where do they go? To space? They go to other users. Whether you send them to a friend, tipjar or spend on the marketplace they go to other users. And when there are more users leaving SL, than new users, the logical thing to assume would be that there are more Lindens leaving the SL economy than entering (but doesn't neccesarilly mean it's true). And creators despite being a minority, control a much larger portion of Lindens. And you don't have to be a wealthy creator to want to cashout. Simply not wanting to be in Second Life would be enough.

And if removing ATMs doesn't mean that Linden Lab are forcing exchanges to cease trading then what does it mean? Are you seriously gonna claim that lindens are allowing for exchanges to continue to operate?

[Ciaran Laval]

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LepreKhaun wrote:

Please cut down on your coffee consumption. Linden Labs is simply reacting to recent changes in policy by

the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), an agency in the U.S. Treasury.

. See the folowing for details:

 

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/virtual-currency-recent-federal-regulat-06978/

http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9504d124-b756-451d-8093-0ee1dd03c5e0

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Do you have inside information from Linden Lab on this? If not you're speculating, all Linden Lab have officially said is that this change is to do with cutting down on fraud, that's all they've officially said.

[Perrie Juran]

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Ciaran Laval wrote:

---

LepreKhaun wrote:

Please cut down on your coffee consumption. Linden Labs is simply reacting to recent changes in policy by

the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), an agency in the U.S. Treasury.

. See the folowing for details:

 

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/virtual-currency-recent-federal-regulat-06978/

http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9504d124-b756-451d-8093-0ee1dd03c5e0

---

Do you have inside information from Linden Lab on this? If not you're speculating, all Linden Lab have officially said is that this change is to do with cutting down on fraud, that's all they've officially said.

---

I would actually not expect LL to say any more than they did.

Generally speaking, any Attorney would advise their client, "Keep Your Mouth Shut."  The less they say, the safer legally they are.

But you are right, out side of a Statement from LL, it is all speculation.

[Dillon Levenque]

 

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Rommanno wrote:

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

 

---

 

The bolded part is the driving force behind your 'theory'. How on earth could there be more people selling Lindens than buying them? Unless I'm completely missing the boat (always a possibility with me), the only reason someone has for selling Lindens is that someone has a surplus.

The only way to acquire a surplus is to have a Linden income that exceeds Linden expenses, and the people who are in that position are a tiny minority of the general populace. I think that theory fails to leave the gate.

 

ETA: I've seen what purports to be the text of letters sent by LL to a couple of exchanges in other threads where this is being discussed. None of them demanded the exchanges 'cease all Linden trading' (although they did in fact require the removal of ATMs)

---

Facepalm. So you spend lindens inworld and where do they go? To space? They go to other users. Whether you send them to a friend, tipjar or spend on the marketplace they go to other users. And when there are more users leaving SL, than new users, the logical thing to assume would be that there are more Lindens leaving the SL economy than entering (but doesn't neccesarilly mean it's true). And creators despite being a minority, control a much larger portion of Lindens. And you don't have to be a wealthy creator to want to cashout. Simply not wanting to be in Second Life would be enough.

And if removing ATMs doesn't mean that Linden Lab are forcing exchanges to cease trading then what does it mean? Are you seriously gonna claim that lindens are allowing for exchanges to continue to operate?

---

 

 

Why the facepalm? I said nothing about spending Lindens. I said nothing about Lindens leaving the economy (nor did you, in the OP). So pointing all that out in your facepalmed response to me is irrelevant.

I took issue with your comment that there would be more people selling Lindens than buying them. I thought it was bunk. I still do. If you had said that there would be more Lindens being sold than bought (as you are attempting to do now) I have no data—I doubt you do either—but I would have at least have considered it a possibility.

 

To the other readers of  this thread: since my original post here I have seen what appear to be more valid quotes from outside exchanges that indicate they have in fact been told to cease and desist, so that part of my comment should be ignored.

[Wolfman Nootan]

Its all about currency control plain and simple, virtual currency is too big a threat to the control of the elites, they are attacking bitcoin and now SL, the same bankers and bastards that caused the global recession, the same bankers who are funded by Bernanke at the federal reserve with a mandate to pump stock prices to the moon even though the real economy stinks. This is what it feels like when freedom is taken away, they can take your real currency,  your virtual curreny, anything they like they can take because they are in control and america is the epicentre of control and corruption and greed. 

[LepreKhaun]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Ciaran Laval wrote:

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LepreKhaun wrote:

Please cut down on your coffee consumption. Linden Labs is simply reacting to recent changes in policy by

the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), an agency in the U.S. Treasury.

. See the folowing for details:

 

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/virtual-currency-recent-federal-regulat-06978/

http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9504d124-b756-451d-8093-0ee1dd03c5e0

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Do you have inside information from Linden Lab on this? If not you're speculating, all Linden Lab have officially said is that this change is to do with cutting down on fraud, that's all they've officially said.

---

I would actually not expect LL to say any more than they did.

Generally speaking, any Attorney would advise their client, "Keep Your Mouth Shut."  The less they say, the safer legally they are.

But you are right, out side of a Statement from LL, it is all speculation.

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Speculation is allowable behavior. I stated what I did and how it was said due to the obvious troll bait being offered by by the OP. For that matter, I could have said that Linden Labs simply needs  VirWoX's half a million a year in transaction fees to offset lost tier revenue (which was near about that amount last year). Either way, my posting, as all are here, is just my opinion, however informed it might be.

[Melita Magic]

I don't think LL had a lot of choice. They have always moved to comply with U.S. law. Note the casino, SL banking, and age restriction changes of the past.

However the real question is how will this impact the SL economy and world, and what will LL do to provide other alternatives for those who cannot use the Lindex?

[Perrie Juran]

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Melita Magic wrote:

I don't think LL had a lot of choice. They have always moved to comply with U.S. law. Note the casino, SL banking, and age restriction changes of the past.

However the real question is how will this impact the SL economy and world, and what will LL do to provide other alternatives for those who cannot use the Lindex?

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The problem is not with not being able to use the Lindex.  That is a side effect of payment problems.