Follow up to inquiry about sharing IM conversations without consent

[Tempest Madrigal]

Hi, they make that part simple in the community standards.

"Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited."

Therefore sharing conversation logs in general is a no no. I was wondering though, given this info is accurate and it appears to be, what if a person is employed by another and conducting business as their agent. For instance does anyone really believe that a nice sized business doesn't regularly share such private conversations in the course of their doing business? Surely there are limits to the protection given when one party is working on behalf of the party who is then passed the conversation later. Otherwise you would have dishonest people conducting themselves without fear of their employers being notified simply by claiming this privlige, which btw to my knowledge not a legal protection in the bay area of the united states as far as I know. Anyway sorry to bother, I am just trying to sort out an area of LL life that seems to be unclear for a great many people. I like candy and ponies too.

[Luc Starsider]

I would think that the simple truth is that a storeowner and employees should not share these logs. They are bound by the TOS the same way as everybody else. Being employed by someone, or having employees, do not set the rules aside. To share they would have to have consent from the parties involved.

- Luc -

[Peewee Musytari]

Original thread: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Abuse-and-Griefing/Is-a-conversation-between-2-avys-in-IM-with-no-personal-info/qaq-p/847727

Hi Tempest,

Please try to stick to one thread for one issue or it just gets confusing and you have people repeating themselves. You can post again on your own threads by using the "Comments" feature.

In answer to your question, as with most "rules and regulations" in life, you need to use some degree of common sense. Think about what the purpose of the rule is, in this case it is to protect the privacy of individuals. Your example about sharing information for business purposes is a good one, if you have a landowner, manager and tenant & the tenant IM`s the manager about a problem, which the manager then passes on to the owner..Is the tenant likely to be upset by that? of course not, if the manager had specifically asked the tenant for persmission to share the IM, its is highly likely that the tenant would agree to it.

If you share private messages without the consent of the other party & you are unsure whether or not that person would object to you sharing it, then don`t do it, because if they report you then you will be in the wrong.

[Cabbage Acanthus]

This area of LL life is pretty clear.  The TOS does not allow posting or sharing of conversation logs without consent.  The TOS applies to all residents.

I do understand what you are saying though.  But as it stands now, any sharing of conversation logs without consent is a violation and any SL business owner who does this is taking a risk with their account and their SL business.