Tilia takes over

[Garnet Psaltery]

In the Featured news there is this article:- https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/2577-important-changes-to-your-second-life-account-introducing-tilia/ which in brief announces that from 1st August your USD transactions are to be handled by Tilia, a specially created subsidiary.  All the details are in the article.

A problem for some will be to provide identification required in order to process credit.  I'm not a US citizen so I'd have to obtain a passport just for this purpose.  I never do process credit but I know many do.  How will it affect you?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Ummmm . . .

"Inactivity Fee"???

And we're back to verification, are we?

 

ETA: Ok, so I'm confused. A bit. Does this impact the buying of Lindens for in-world purchases? I'm assuming so?

Edited July 1, 2019 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Blush Bravin]

My biggest question at this point is if Tilia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Linden Lab, why do we need to resubmit our financial information? They should have all this on file. I could understand the need if it were a separate contractor doing the work, but it's just Linden Lab by another name isn't it? Or am I reading the info wrong?

[Gavin Hird]

I could not see a single line about GDPR Compliance in the terms and privacy policies for this Tilia company?

Since we are asked to provide government issued identification if non US citizens, the company we give it to must be in GDPR compliance when handling EU citizens of which there are quite a few of in Secondlife. 

[Fox Wijaya]

funny .... first they tie you to them for at least a year with renewing premiums and now they change the game?....

i don't want my social security numbers or private information in hands of again another  commercial party.

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Fox Wijaya

[animats]

I've been reading the terms for "Tilia". Some notes:

• There's mention of some Tilia "token", as a store of value that doesn't have value. Is this the Linden Dollar? Or is LL getting into the cryptocurrency business, like some other virtual worlds. (That didn't end well.) It looks like they mean Linden Dollars, but it's not clearly specified.
• "Should either you or Tilia elect to resolve the Dispute by way of binding arbitration, the arbitration shall proceed in accordance with the then-current Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"), except that in no event shall the arbitration proceed as a class or representative action."   The fee for a commercial arbitration starts at $925.
• "NO VALUE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IS GUARANTEED OR WARRANTED WITH RESPECT TO ANY CONTENT, INCLUDING VIRTUAL TOKENS OR STORED VALUE BALANCES." "The Tilia Service is subject to scheduled and unscheduled service interruptions and loss of server data, which you do not own and for which you will not hold us liable."
• "Unless Tilia elects to refund the balance of your Stored Value Account, you shall not be entitled to any compensation or other payment, remedy, recourse or refund upon terminating your Account."
• "If you accumulate more value in your Stored Value Account than you need to pay amounts associated with the use of the Provider’s Platform, Tilia may, in its discretion and subject to its agreement with the relevant Provider, allow you to request a refund from the Stored Value Balance. Subject to your compliance with Tilia’s Terms, you may be permitted to request that Tilia process a credit from your Stored Value Balance, in an amount equal to all or a portion of the available funds associated with your Stored Value Balance, to your PayPal account or other account permitted by Tilia. Tilia, in its sole discretion, will approve or deny your request. "
• "Virtual Tokens may not be purchased or sold outside of any In-Platform Exchange. Any purchase of Virtual Tokens from anywhere other than the In-Platform Exchange is not permitted and is considered a violation of these Terms which may result in suspension or termination of your Account."

These are terrible terms for a financial service. It looks like they can take your assets whenever they want to. What this seems to add up to is that withdrawing money from SL is going to become much harder and much riskier. Anyone getting significant revenue from SL needs to talk to a lawyer. Now.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

40 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ummmm . . .

"Inactivity Fee"???

https://www.tilia-inc.com/legal/tos/

Quote

If you have funds in your Stored Value Balance and have not made any transfers to or from or otherwise accessed your Stored Value Balance for a period of twelve (12) months, your Stored Value Balance will be deemed an “Inactive Account.”  Other forms of access besides a transfer include, for example, a balance inquiry or accessing your Account.  Unless prohibited by applicable law, we reserve the right to deduct from any Stored Value Balance that is an Inactive Account a fee in the amount of the lower of (i) the amount set forth in our Fee Schedule or (ii) the balance of funds in the Inactive Account (the “Inactivity Fee”). The Inactivity Fee will be charged each successive month for as long as the Stored Value Balance is an Inactive Account.

TLDR: If you have money in your Tilia account but it shows no activity for 12 months, your Tilia balance will be charged based on a Fee Schedule or whatever is left in your balance.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Gavin Hird]

3 minutes ago, animats said:

I've been reading the terms for "Tilia". Some notes:

• There's mention of some Tilia "token", as a store of value that doesn't have value. Is this the Linden Dollar? Or is LL getting into the cryptocurrency business, like some other virtual worlds. (That didn't end well.) It looks like they mean Linden Dollars, but it's not clearly specified.
• "Should either you or Tilia elect to resolve the Dispute by way of binding arbitration, the arbitration shall proceed in accordance with the then-current Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"), except that in no event shall the arbitration proceed as a class or representative action."   The fee for a commercial arbitration starts at $925.
• "NO VALUE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IS GUARANTEED OR WARRANTED WITH RESPECT TO ANY CONTENT, INCLUDING VIRTUAL TOKENS OR STORED VALUE BALANCES." "The Tilia Service is subject to scheduled and unscheduled service interruptions and loss of server data, which you do not own and for which you will not hold us liable."
• "Unless Tilia elects to refund the balance of your Stored Value Account, you shall not be entitled to any compensation or other payment, remedy, recourse or refund upon terminating your Account."
• "If you accumulate more value in your Stored Value Account than you need to pay amounts associated with the use of the Provider’s Platform, Tilia may, in its discretion and subject to its agreement with the relevant Provider, allow you to request a refund from the Stored Value Balance. Subject to your compliance with Tilia’s Terms, you may be permitted to request that Tilia process a credit from your Stored Value Balance, in an amount equal to all or a portion of the available funds associated with your Stored Value Balance, to your PayPal account or other account permitted by Tilia. Tilia, in its sole discretion, will approve or deny your request. "
• "Virtual Tokens may not be purchased or sold outside of any In-Platform Exchange. Any purchase of Virtual Tokens from anywhere other than the In-Platform Exchange is not permitted and is considered a violation of these Terms which may result in suspension or termination of your Account."

These are terrible terms for a financial service. It looks like they can take your assets whenever they want to. What this seems to add up to is that withdrawing money from SL is going to become much harder and much riskier. Anyone getting significant revenue from SL needs to talk to a lawyer. Now.

Asking non US citizens to resolve Disputes in the US is the same as telling them they cannot resolve disputes at all, as it is not practical or economical. 

For EU citizens, their UK subsidiary will be the contract party (as long as they are in the EU and Brexit has not been resolved), and obviously disputes will have to be done in a EU court. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

The LL blog post is missing some info that I think we need.

The Tilia TOS sounds like it might be set up to allow for interaction with multiple online services, not just SL. 

As far as SL is concerned, I can't figure out is Tilia is ONLY for process credit out, or if it also gets involved to pull money from your payment method for buying L$ or paying Premium and Tier fees.  Also, when you sell L$ and get a USD balance, is that balance now going to be sitting at Tilia?

 

@Linden Lab- Your blog post is not specific enough.

Edited July 1, 2019 by LittleMe Jewell

[Fionalein]

10 minutes ago, animats said:

• "If you accumulate more value in your Stored Value Account than you need to pay amounts associated with the use of the Provider’s Platform, Tilia may, in its discretion and subject to its agreement with the relevant Provider, allow you to request a refund from the Stored Value Balance. Subject to your compliance with Tilia’s Terms, you may be permitted to request that Tilia process a credit from your Stored Value Balance, in an amount equal to all or a portion of the available funds associated with your Stored Value Balance, to your PayPal account or other account permitted by Tilia. Tilia, in its sole discretion, will approve or deny your request. "

Er wait? Does that mean there is no guarantee to be able to process credit anymore?

[Blueray Darkes]

There is a serious lack of information for this. Is this only going to affect buying lindens? Do we need to agree to use this service or can we opt out and still buy lindens? If we don't have tillia are we unable to buy lindens? Why are we going to be charged for being inactive? If we can't afford to buy lindens then we can't afford to be charged, charging someone for being inactive is shady and not exactly fair. 

Why are you going in to using Tilia? What is wrong with the current system? The current system is perfectly fine as it is, its not broken so don't try to fix it.

[Neural Blankes]

Yet more grubby little hands involved with the money.  Lovely.

 

• "NO VALUE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IS GUARANTEED OR WARRANTED WITH RESPECT TO ANY CONTENT, INCLUDING VIRTUAL TOKENS OR STORED VALUE BALANCES." "The Tilia Service is subject to scheduled and unscheduled service interruptions and loss of server data, which you do not own and for which you will not hold us liable.

Translation: Your money is no longer your money nor is does it have any real value so long as it is in our system anywhere, and we can take all of it, call it a "loss of server data", and you have no legal recourse.  

Not that anyone will have any money left anyway after every middle-man takes his cut of the transaction fees.

Seems to me that Linden Research is looking to destroy any use of their virtual world as supplementary income.

[Fox Wijaya]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

The LL blog post is missing some info that I think we need.

The Tilia TOS sounds like it might be set up to allow for interaction with multiple online services, not just SL. 

As far as SL is concerned, I can't figure out is Tilia is ONLY for process credit out, or if it also gets involved to pull money from your payment method for buying L$ or paying Premium and Tier fees.  Also, when you sell L$ and get a USD balance, is that balance now going to be sitting at Tilia?

how i read it, the total financial part of SL gets in hands of Tilia, no escape possible, and another company that can decide to lock you out of SL, seperate acount, seperate TOS.
I would prefer LL gives us a translated official document in our own languages, this english/american lawyer jargon isn't something normal people use in daily life.
If it's as strict as i see it, many people will get multiple barriers to get to their own money.
This might turn into a disaster as we have seen during the inworld banking crises many years ago.

[NeoBokrug Elytis]

As I understand, you have to provide your ID info only if you cash out from SL (Turning your L$ into your local currency).  Everyone seems to be missing this point, and freaking out.

Additionally, that fee seems to only apply if your account is INACTIVE, and I assume that it only applies to fiat currencies and not L$.

Honestly this opens up a lot of doors for LL as a registered Money Services Business.  They can skip paypal all together, act as a bank, and convert their own payments from any currency including crypto.  LL was already pretty much fronting all the liabilities without any of the benefits of being an MSB since day one.  So it really makes sense for it to be official now.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 minutes ago, Blueray Darkes said:

There is a serious lack of information for this. Is this only going to affect buying lindens? Do we need to agree to use this service or can we opt out and still buy lindens? If we don't have tillia are we unable to buy lindens? Why are we going to be charged for being inactive? If we can't afford to buy lindens then we can't afford to be charged, charging someone for being inactive is shady and not exactly fair. 

Why are you going in to using Tilia? What is wrong with the current system? The current system is perfectly fine as it is, its not broken so don't try to fix it.

Tilia will be required and it will be created for you automatically, using your SL username/password.

The inactivity fee is only charged on your Tilia $US balance (kinda like the current $US account balance). If your balance is 0, you cannot be charged.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Tokeya Tank]

Quote

you will not need a separate username or password to access your Tilia Account.  

So then they are storing our info via plain text to send to Tilia to create new accounts. And now they want me to give them literally all of my personally identifying information after just telling me their security practices are um, not great?

[Fox Wijaya]

2 minutes ago, NeoBokrug Elytis said:

As I understand, you have to provide your ID info only if you cash out from SL (Turning your L$ into your local currency).  Everyone seems to be missing this point, and freaking out.

Effective August 1, in order to continue using Second Life you will have to agree to Tilia’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.  A Tilia Account associated with your Second Life Account will automatically be created for you and you will not need a separate username or password to access your Tilia Account.  

By registering for an Account (as defined below) and/or accessing or using any portion of the Tilia Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms.

To create a Tilia Account and/or access certain features or functionality of the Tilia Service, we may require you to provide us with your name, address, date of birth, telephone number, street address or zip code, and other information that will allow us to identify you. We may also ask to see your driver's license or other identifying documents. You agree to provide accurate, current and complete information about yourself and to use the Account management tools provided to keep that information accurate, current and complete. We may request additional information from you in the future. If you have previously provided identifying information to a Provider in connection with your use of a Platform, you authorize the Provider to share that information with us, and we may use this information to verify your identity. We may validate the information you provide to us to ensure we have a reasonable belief of your identity. We reserve the right to refuse, suspend, limit or terminate your access to all or a portion of the Tilia Service at any time in our sole discretion.

[NeoBokrug Elytis]

Quote

In order to stay in compliance with regulatory requirements, if you wish to process a credit, we will need certain personal information to verify your identity, including your name, address, date of birth, and social security number (or government-issued identification if you are not a U.S. Citizen).

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by NeoBokrug Elytis

[Parhelion Palou]

44 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ummmm . . .

"Inactivity Fee"???

And we're back to verification, are we?

 

ETA: Ok, so I'm confused. A bit. Does this impact the buying of Lindens for in-world purchases? I'm assuming so?

Per the FAQ: " As of August 1, 2019, Tilia assumes management of your account's U.S. dollar balance in the form of your Tilia account. Tilia also handles process credit requests and payments made from your Tilia account." If LL wants to split hairs finely enough, buying Lindens would involve Tilia because your payment is in dollars & Tilia holds those.

However, also from the FAQ: "In order to stay in compliance with regulatory requirements, if you wish to process a credit then you must provide certain personal information to verify your identity, ..." So no identity requirement as long as you're not processing credit.

4 minutes ago, Tokeya Tank said:

So then they are storing our info via plain text to send to Tilia to create new accounts.

Where did you see anything that said this?

[animats]

4 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Er wait? Does that mean there is no guarantee to be able to process credit anymore?

That seems to be what it says. Again, if you get significant revenue for LL, your lawyer needs to read that.

These are terms appropriate to a business where almost nobody ever takes money out. Like ITunes. They're all wrong for a pseudo-bank or money transmitter.

[Neural Blankes]

4 minutes ago, Tokeya Tank said:

So then they are storing our info via plain text to send to Tilia to create new accounts. And now they want me to give them literally all of my personally identifying information after just telling me their security practices are um, not great?

Likely that is just the tip of the ice berg with this.  I would love to hear Linden Lab respond to it with proof that they aren't doing exactly that.   It would seem our passwords and user information are for sale to the highest bidder otherwise.

[Fox Wijaya]

1 minute ago, NeoBokrug Elytis said:

 

you'r a few steps ahead... i'm still at the "proces" of opening a tilia account where they already can ( and can = will in this world) ask for all additional info.

Also. have to keep the info accurate, but we don't even had access to the stored info at all in all the years i've been here. They want transparancy, but only from us, not themself.

[NeoBokrug Elytis]

Just now, Neural Blankes said:

Likely that is just the tip of the ice berg with this.  I would love to hear Linden Lab respond to it with proof that they aren't doing exactly that.   It would seem our passwords and user information are for sale to the highest bidder otherwise.

LL owns Tillia and Second Life.  There are many ways to share the data between the two, as a registered money services business they have to follow PCI compliance, which means they DO NOT HAVE your login info in plain-text.

[Ginger Shostakovich]

For a company which places so much value on user-created content, this "shoot first and answer questions later (if at all)"-approach tastes bitter. 

Some warning would have been nice, some explanations even better. 

You have to accept their TOS in order to continue using Second Life? No way to opt out of Tilia? Well. 

 

PS: I didn't see the blog post; I got an email. Surprise!

Edited July 1, 2019 by Ginger Shostakovich

[Parhelion Palou]

1 minute ago, Neural Blankes said:

Likely that is just the tip of the ice berg with this.  I would love to hear Linden Lab respond to it with proof that they aren't doing exactly that.   It would seem our passwords and user information are for sale to the highest bidder otherwise.

All they have to do is point Tilia's logins to the same system they use to log into the SL website and SL itself.