Has Linden Labs started selling information?

[Diana Tyran]

So recently I've been receiving automated Facebook friend suggestions from people on my SL friends list/people I sometimes encounter at SL events. The thing is, I made my Facebook account like 8 years ago, used it once, never added anyone as a friend and havent touched it since. There's no FB app on my phone, or PC and I never put any information into FB. The only thing that connects Facebook and SL is they both use the same Email address. Most of them are people from my SL friends list (it seems they made Facebook pages using their SL names) but there are a few suggestions I've received from people not on my friends list, but names I recognize from some sims I frequent.

So has LL started selling information or has facebook (which I have never touched) somehow managed to to gain access to my SL info?

[Soft Linden]

Linden Lab does not sell customer information, not even non-identifying information like friend lists.

We have never done so in the past either. We're aware of other companies that do this, and most of us find that practice to be creepy and an abuse of customer trust.

If you ever came to suspect that we changed our minds on this, you could look at our Privacy Policy. We would be required by law to disclose the practice there. Making companies disclose this practice is one of the great benefits of new privacy regulations.

[Skell Dagger]

Facebook tracks you even if you don't have an account with them:

https://about.fb.com/news/2018/04/data-off-facebook/

Quote

When does Facebook get data about people from other websites and apps?
Many websites and apps use Facebook services to make their content and ads more engaging and relevant. These services include:

Social plugins, such as our Like and Share buttons, which make other sites more social and help you share content on Facebook;

Facebook Login, which lets you use your Facebook account to log into another website or app;

Facebook Analytics, which helps websites and apps better understand how people use their services; and

Facebook ads and measurement tools, which enable websites and apps to show ads from Facebook advertisers, to run their own ads on Facebook or elsewhere, and to understand the effectiveness of their ads.

When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account. This is because other apps and sites don’t know who is using Facebook.

Multiple pages on SL's web properties have Facebook buttons. SL Marketplace, for example, has 'Follow Us' Facebook and Twitter buttons at the bottom of every page. Your SL Marketplace order history makes four calls to Facebook every time you access it. Anytime you see a Facebook 'like this' icon or a 'follow us on Facebook' icon on any website, Facebook tracks that information, even if you don't have an FB account or you have one that you've not accessed for years.

You can install plugins such as Ghostery to block those icons from tracking you, or set your browser to disallow social media and cross-site tracking cookies.

[Kathlen Onyx]

How are you getting these suggestions if you don't have FB on your phone or PC? By email? I have never gotten a automated friend request though email before from FB.

[Diana Tyran]

A few weeks ago I began getting automated emails with my SL friend's names in them from FB (the links in them actually go to the facebook URL, so I'm pretty sure they're legitimate emails)

[Alwin Alcott]

3 hours ago, Diana Tyran said:

So recently I've been receiving automated Facebook friend suggestions from people on my SL friends list/people I sometimes encounter at SL events. The thing is, I made my Facebook account like 8 years ago, used it once, never added anyone as a friend and havent touched it since. There's no FB app on my phone, or PC and I never put any information into FB. The only thing that connects Facebook and SL is they both use the same Email address. Most of them are people from my SL friends list (it seems they made Facebook pages using their SL names) but there are a few suggestions I've received from people not on my friends list, but names I recognize from some sims I frequent.

So has LL started selling information or has facebook (which I have never touched) somehow managed to to gain access to my SL info?

so you have a FB account, installed app or using doesn't matter because  they have your email adress and you have a load of cookies .....1+1=2...

[Diana Tyran]

How exactly would they have my cookies if I havent accessed facebook in 8 years? They would only be able to access my cookies if I had recently visited the site, which I haven't lol 1-1=0

And besides, are you saying that not only are the people on my friend's list somehow in my browser cookies, but also people who AREN'T my friends that I have regularly seen in other sims? That makes 0 sense.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Diana Tyran

[panterapolnocy]

I'm personally not sure if this feature still exists (cannot launch a viewer to check right now), but if you're logged in / opten in to SL Share, then you can see other people from your SL friends list as suggestions on Facebook, in "suggested friends" tab under People. It doesn't matter that you have not accessed Facebook in years (actually, even if you have not - you've had. There are trillions "share", "like" etc. plugins on many websites that throw cookies at you and your web browser).

52 minutes ago, Diana Tyran said:

I began getting automated emails with my SL friend's names in them from FB

Is these emails' source Facebook or Second Life servers?

Edited June 28, 2021 by panterapolnocy

[Chroma Starlight]

Even if FB doesn't track you, for a big cosmopolitan social media platform such as Second Life it seems all but foregone that they've inevitably been served a national security letter. Can anyone point to a warrant canary associated with Second Life? "second life" "warrant canary" Google search doesn't get me far. 

Although perhaps a Linden could clarify whether or not the company is now presently or has ever previously been gagged in an official capacity by the US Federal government?

[Nova Convair]

Don't tell anybody your email you use for SL and don't use this email for everything else.

I never get any email sent to my SL-email- adresses except from LL of course.

The leak is at your end.

[Rowan Amore]

Did you all not read Skell's explanation?

[Kathlen Onyx]

12 hours ago, Diana Tyran said:

who AREN'T my friends that I have regularly seen in other sims? That makes 0 sense.

This makes 0 sense. Perhaps you'd like to share an image of one of these emails so we can see what it looks like. With all the personal info redacted of course.

What email address is this coming from? You said from Facebook but what is the email address the are being sent from?

[Rowan Amore]

When I briefly had a Facebook account for an SL job, I got friend suggestions from a.lot of SL users.  I also used the same email there as my SL email.  I had notificarions turned off so never received any emails from Facebook.  But as Skell pointed out, if you log into the MP on the same email you use for Facebook, it collects that info and probably does some computer type thingy that links all addresses that use SL marketplace.  Oh look!  All these people use the same website (MP), they might know each other.  It's not LL selling info, it's Facebook collecting info.

 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

11 hours ago, Soft Linden said:

Linden Lab does not sell customer information, not even non-identifying information like friend lists.

It's not selling, but isn't providing trackers on several pages nearly the same?