Is it ever permissible to share IMs?

[Veronika Larsson]

I recently read the updated profile of an SL resident who is notorious for sharing IM conversations (in violation of the Second Life Terms of Service).  She has updated her profile to include this statement:

"Disclaimer: Chat/IMs may be recorded & shared (stating this, releases me from liability per SL TOS)"

Is this true?  I searched through the Second Life Terms of Service (SL TOS) and couldn't find any such exception to the "do not share IMs" rule.

Anybody know whether or not a disclaimer such as this releases this person from being in violation of Second Life Terms of Service?

[Asia Wilder]

Wrong, Darla.  Because there is no requirement, or even urging to read anyone's profile.

I mean, c'mon; I could write in my profile 'if you IM me, you've agreed to give me all your Lindens.'  Anyone who has IM'd me would not be considered to have consented to that because they're not required to even look at my profile -- much less read everything written therein, prior to IM'ing.

Lawyers disagree as to the interpretation of privacy laws.  And, despite your 'professional' experience, you're not a lawyer.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Daria.Afterthought wrote:

 

Wrong. And people click "I agree" by engaging in the IM and "I disagree" by not engaging. Ignorant consent = Passive consent.

 

Maybe in Red China, but not in the USA.

Need active consent to waive a right in the USA.

[Senkiya Zsun]

Add me to the disclamiers are BS camp. Thank you.

If there is no record of my giving consent, I didn't give it. If there is no evidence I read a disclaimer, I didn't read it.

And since everybody seems to be guessing here, please, nobody assume your guess is better than mine. (pacifying smile)

[Pussycat Catnap]

Just look up some case law on why you have to click an 'accept terms' checkbox now rather than tearing through some random paper glued to the shrink wrap like it used to be.

Its not really guessing.

[Braden Tedeschi]

I'm no lawyer.  I happen to find the disclaimers of "automatic consent" quite annoying, so..

.. I added one myself.  However, mine says (to the effect of) "If I find your message abusive or against SL TOS in some way, they will be disclosed."

The right to disclose forms of abuse of TOS is certainly not a violation of TOS.

(in the cases in which I was involved, people were using the multitude of tools available to them to chat-spy, cam-spy, and other various such things)

[Senkiya Zsun]

Pussycat, I'm not contesting the correctness of your assertion about what the law says. But we are not dealing with legal recourse here. The guessing part concerns the way Linden Lab interprets or should interpret disclaimers. My view is that the idea of ignorant consent is hogwash: By default, per the ToS, I don't consent. So unless I say yes I consent, I don't. Easy peasy uh?

But if I'm wrong and ignorant consent really does exist, well, my ToS upholder has now gone on record so it trumps all ToS disclaimers.

Not my fault if somebody with a disclaimer didn't read it before C&P'ing my IM.

[Zak Westminster]

Hi there!

I have a "disclaimer" on my own profile and I'll share it with you all now...

 

Be aware that I log all chat and IM as this is the only way to effectively combat those who wish to abuse the TOS. IM Chat logs will only be passed on to Linden Lab, Estate Managers/Administrators or Group Moderators in support of a grievance. By contacting me via IM you agree to this process.

I clearly state that I log all local as well as IM chat and that I'll pass that own to Linden Lab or the owners of the place I was in but only in support of a grievance.

I think the very important thing here is to apply some commonsense to the discussion about why people pass on IM logs. If they do so for any other reason than to support a grievance with Linden Lab or the owners of the place where they had the problem then, as far as I am concerned it is wrong.

It's quite sad really that I need to have that disclaimer in my profile but I play a child like avatar (a faerey actually) and sadly I do get a few abusive IM's from people who are not right in the head.

Zak Westminster

[Veronika Larsson]

something tells me this is one of those threads where its like "I have my opinion made up and I just want to see how many people agree with me. Other points of view and/or facts are irrelevant. I just want attention and praise" = "I don't agree with Daria Afterthought."

Once again, you are confusing "law" with "Terms Of Service".

Sharing IMs is not a matter for civil or criminal litigation.  Linden Labs has stated that it is a matter covered by their Terms Of Service.

I asked a question whether or not anybody could find anything stated in the Terms Of Service that would validate the statement that by IMing a certain person, you implicitly consent to having your IMs shared with the world, and would have no right to an Abuse Report.

Really, the only people who can definitely answer this are the Lindens themselves, because they have the power to interpret the Terms Of Service, which is the contract between the residents of Second Life and Linden Labs.

You keep bringing US law into this, and it has no applicability in this situation.  So you are operating from a fundamentally flawed premise, and now you're making personal accusations that have no place in a reasonable discussion.

[Veronika Larsson]

"Seeing as Linden Labs, as a company, has to abide by US law does not mean that their definition of consent has to extend to all those supported by the real world system.  Because so long as they, as a company, abide by the laws they can do what they want with their ToS and their game. "

 

Exactly so.  Let us take the case of a person who is banned from Second Life for ageplay, which happens from time to time.

When Linden Labs cancels that person's account, he/she loses everything--all the money he/she has invested in inventory as well as any Lindens (which can be converted into RL money!) in his/her account--without any right of compensation.

In Real Life, under US law, the government cannot just seize your property and money without "due process" (a court hearing). 

In Second Life, the Lindens can deprive you of your property and money without giving you a right to any "due process" if they so choose.

Daria Afterthought is confusing "the law" with "Terms Of Service", and hence the confusion.

[Phantom Khandr]

Just to make things clear, acording to ToS, its never allowed to share ims. Thats how it is now.

I do have to say that LL made a huge misstake adding this to ToS, there are non what so ever reason to have it in ToS.

The thing is soo simple, it should say in ToS that : All information that a resident chose to share in IM, chat or in there profile, is concidered public, if i dont want anyone in SL to know something about me, i simply dont say it in sl, or add it to my profile, there are other ways like mail to do that if i so chose.

And if you read this LL, so dont even try to come with any bull about laws and stuff, this is all youres decission.

Just change youre misstake LL and make the residents happy, so that business owners can keep running there business, without opening websites for there staff to be able to run something in SL,

It cant be that hard to admitt you made wrong, change it, and you are all forgiven, not even LL are more then humans.

 

The best from Phantom Khandr.

[ilse Solo]

The fact that you open a post on this forum would rather be a good evidence that you did read her disclaimer

 

And please, lets all grow up. AR'ing for someone sharing IM logs, what is that all about?

Disclosing business sensitive informatin, fine, that is bad and if it hurts your business it should be dealed with. But lets grow up, LL i'm sure has more important things to do then mediate between former friends that just want to get at each other for whatever reason.

Just laugh it of, remove the person from your friend list if still present and show you are the wise one.

And yes, i did also experience problems by shared IM's, but then again i also experienced that in the normal world. But there i never seen anyone going to the goverment and demand them to be removed from the country because they forwarded an email, or told x what z told them.

Just because there is a digital world means people behave different. If z is going to be hurt about what x is telling, then x shouldnt call upon LL to remove whatever he/she said about z but think by themself how to make up with z for saying those words.

Lets all grow up , let LL deal with important things, not our childish revenge, because lets face it, AR'ing someone because they shared your IM's is just that revenge.He/she hurt me, i will hurt them back.

Dont hide  behide a TOS in a virtual world , think before you speak.Take responsibility for your word  All my IM's get forwarded for all i care. they reflect my opinion and i stand by them even if they would reach someone i would rather not have them reach. It's still what i said, and what i say is what i feel.

If they contain intimate details about myself, well, i shared them with the outside world. A TOS wont help me trust the other side. Even if they would not share it as IM log they could still mention those details. Again, i choose to share them with the outside world. And that is how life works.

Trust and respect amongst people is what is needed. Not a TOS, disclaimer or whatever.

To get back to the original question, she warned, you read it. And really, what is the purpose, from what i read you don't like her. You're not going to really talk to her are you. Or ?

[Peter Stindberg]

Few people notice there is a loophole in the ToS here. They only say you can't post chatlogs inside SL or the SL Forums. They do not say you can't post them on your blog or email them.

The reason behind this is that only SL itself and the SL Forums (as long as they still exist) are under the "jurisdiction" of LL. They have no way of enforcing rules on blogs or social media websites. And what is worse, they would open a legal can of worms even trying to do so.

[Lukai Zufreur]

This has been beat to death...however. Fact of the matter is, while you may or may not technically be allowed to sharelogs/IMs, people are going to do it anyway. If they didn't want this to become an issue, then they should not have put in the option for people to log them. Not to mention, unless it is a screenshot (which, granted with much more effort, can still be fabricated) text logs can easily be changed or created at a moments notice, so, nothing is credible anyway.

 

Here is a hint: If you are afraid of your IM's being logged, then, chances are you are saying something about someone or, someplace, that you maybe shouldn't be, and are afraid you will get caught doing so.

 

Food for thought.

[Alexand Vantelli]

On 2/7/2010 at 4:51 PM, Nyll Bergbahn said:

She can have all the disclaimers she likes but it's what the TOS says that counts as far as LL are concerned. If someone lodges an Abuse Report for sharing an IM without consent, that disclaimer is worth a big fat zero.

Nyll

What is worth a big fat zero is lodging any time of abuse report. The lindens don't do anything unless it has something to do with them. We are all on our own out here. I have had someone share IMS before and nothing was done to their account. 

[Resi Pfeffer]

4 hours ago, Alexand Vantelli said:

What is worth a big fat zero is lodging any time of abuse report. The lindens don't do anything unless it has something to do with them. We are all on our own out here. I have had someone share IMS before and nothing was done to their account. 

Wrong.
If you can prove someone is doing things against the TOS, it will taken care of in a lot of cases.
My Linden Home neighbor only had a 1024 sqm wooden platform hovering above her house (probably to know where the parcels borders are). It took only 48 hours for a Linden employee to come over and remove it (nope, wasnt me reporting).

P.S. The thread you answered is 9 months old, btw

[Wulfie Reanimator]

23 minutes ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

The thread you answered is 9 months old, btw

12 years since creation, 9 years since last post. 😄

[Resi Pfeffer]

2 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

12 years since creation, 9 years since last post. 😄

ouch, i was blind, too. Didnt even notice the year 2013  

[Rowan Amore]

10 hours ago, Alexand Vantelli said:

What is worth a big fat zero is lodging any time of abuse report. The lindens don't do anything unless it has something to do with them. We are all on our own out here. I have had someone share IMS before and nothing was done to their account. 

Also, you will never know if anything is done.  The account may have received a warning from LL.  Sharing IMs, AFAIK, is not something LL would ban a resident for.  Pile up enough official warnings over time and maybe.  

 

[Alexand Vantelli]

17 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Also, you will never know if anything is done.  The account may have received a warning from LL.  Sharing IMs, AFAIK, is not something LL would ban a resident for.  Pile up enough official warnings over time and maybe.  

 

Mmm... I didn't think about it that way. That's a great point. 

[Alexand Vantelli]

23 hours ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

Wrong.
If you can prove someone is doing things against the TOS, it will taken care of in a lot of cases.
My Linden Home neighbor only had a 1024 sqm wooden platform hovering above her house (probably to know where the parcels borders are). It took only 48 hours for a Linden employee to come over and remove it (nope, wasnt me reporting).

P.S. The thread you answered is 9 months old, btw

I do not ask you.  

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

59 minutes ago, Alexand Vantelli said:

I do not ask you.  

You resurrected a nearly decade old thread on a public forum simply to offer your own (rather cynical) opinion, you can hardly complain if other members of that forum respond.

This is just my opinion but I suggest you put down the shovel and step out of the hole you're digging yourself while you still can!  

[Nick0678]

On 11/30/2022 at 6:31 AM, Alexand Vantelli said:

What is worth a big fat zero is lodging any time of abuse report. The lindens don't do anything unless it has something to do with them. We are all on our own out here. I have had someone share IMS before and nothing was done to their account. 

... also sharing IM's over SKYPE/DISCORD/ETC is not a violation .

You are free to exercise your First Amendment Right.

[Lindal Kidd]

4 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

... also sharing IM's over SKYPE/DISCORD/ETC is not a violation .

You are free to exercise your First Amendment Right.

Or to put it another way, LL does not have any way to enforce the ToS except on their own properties, like SL and this web site.

[Alexand Vantelli]

10 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

You resurrected a nearly decade old thread on a public forum simply to offer your own (rather cynical) opinion, you can hardly complain if other members of that forum respond.

This is just my opinion but I suggest you put down the shovel and step out of the hole you're digging yourself while you still can!  

Okay

Edited December 1, 2022 by Alexand Vantelli

[Alexand Vantelli]

4 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Or to put it another way, LL does not have any way to enforce the ToS except on their own properties, like SL and this web site.

Oh nice, that's also really great information. Thank you! : D and you're right, they do state that on the TOS themselves.