Is this SL survey legitimate or is it spam?

[Leora Greenwood]

I just received this yesterday, one for each of my accounts.  It seems to be asking some very personal questions so I wanted to make sure it was for real before I decide whether or not to participate.  Just trying to be careful and the sender does seem to be SL.  Thanks for any insight you wise forumites can offer!

[Marigold Devin]

This doesn't look at all like something Linden Lab would do. They are constantly receiving feedback from residents, even here on the forums, for free, so they wouldn't need to carry out a survey which would not be representative enough of the majority of residents' opinions.

https://danielvoyager.wordpress.com/2022/01/25/linden-lab-sending-out-invitations-to-complete-a-survey-and-give-feedback/

Edited February 18, 2022 by Marigold Devin

[Sid Nagy]

If you are asked to transfer cash to a Nigerian prince in trouble, be very suspicious.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

If you are asked to transfer cash to a Nigerian prince in trouble, be very suspicious.

But, if you're asked to transfer cash to an adorable little demon, it's legit.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

30 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

But, if you're asked to transfer cash to an adorable little demon, it's legit.

This one? https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ Seems like a noble cause, yes.

[Madelaine McMasters]

20 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

This one? https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ Seems like a noble cause, yes.

Get off my scam, Arduenn!...

Okay, okay, okay, FreeBSD does seem a noble cause.

[diamond Marchant]

This survey appears to be conducted by a company  (hired by LL) called Material Plus - check out their website to see what they are about.

Prior to completing the survey, you must "Accept" conditions including the following:

Quote

By clicking “Accept” you agree to keep the contents of the study strictly confidential, and further agree that to the extent you supply or we collect any personal data about you as part of the study, we may (i) use it ourselves in connection with our conduct of the study, (ii) share it with third parties assisting us with the study, who may use it solely in connection with their work on the study, or (iii) share it with the client commissioning the study, who may use it in connection with its business.

Basically, they require an NDA from you.

[Leora Greenwood]

16 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

This survey appears to be conducted by a company  (hired by LL) called Material Plus - check out their website to see what they are about.

Prior to completing the survey, you must "Accept" conditions including the following:

Basically, they require an NDA from you.

Thanks for the research; somehow I am not feeling reassured...

[animats]

Uh oh. Check the US Federal Trade Commission's Sweepstakes Rule.

If you have to do something of value to the sweepstakes operator to enter, it's a lottery. There are a whole series of specific rules for a sweepstakes in the US. California is even tougher.

This has been coming up a lot lately with "promote us on social media for a chance to win" schemes.

Is this really from Linden Lab? They have all those compliance people they hired for Tilia. Did no one look at this?

The legit way to do this is to just send every responder something. A SL T-shirt or coffee mug. I just received an unexpected coffee mug from a game development conference, and all I did was sign up for a free virtual event.

Edited February 18, 2022 by animats

[Leora Greenwood]

Well, I decided to do the survey, sure took long enough, LOL.

[Krystina Ferraris]

Sounds very suspicious, I wonder are they trying to remove our pelvis and legs?

Edited February 18, 2022 by Krystina Ferraris

[diamond Marchant]

55 minutes ago, animats said:

If you have to do something of value to the sweepstakes operator to enter, it's a lottery.

They appear to have followed the law by NOT requiring you to do something of value. The email contains a link to the rules which state that you just have to enter the survey to qualify for the prize. It is not required to answer any questions.

I believe this is Linden Lab project because of the use of the secondlife.com domain in various places. Other domains are used for survey tracking and execution. Also, the query string in the survey URL contains markers which enables the survey data collected to be combined with any demographic or behavioral data already collected by Linden Lab for the avatar corresponding to the survey.

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Leora Greenwood said:

I just received this yesterday, one for each of my accounts.  It seems to be asking some very personal questions so I wanted to make sure it was for real before I decide whether or not to participate.

It is for real but you're not the first one to react this way. Here's an earlier discussion about it.

Edited February 18, 2022 by ChinRey

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

This one? https://freebsdfoundation.org/donate/ Seems like a noble cause, yes.

 

FreeBSD is certainly not a scam. It's a well established operating system and the second most common open source one in the world, next only to Linux. If we include OS X and iOS, Apple's rebranded versions of it, it's the second most common OS in the world, open source or not.

But that being said, Apple alone has made gazillions of bucks from it. If they have any decency at all, they ought to have made sure the foundation is well enough founded there'd be no need to ask for donations.

Edited February 18, 2022 by ChinRey

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

6 hours ago, ChinRey said:

FreeBSD is certainly not a scam.

Yeah I know it isn't. I used 'seems' sarcastically. When @Madelaine McMasters said...

13 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

if you're asked to transfer cash to an adorable little demon, it's legit.

.. FreeBSD was this first legit non-profit thing I had to think of. So I mentioned the little daemon as a joke.

But when I receive an email in which a know game brand (Second Life) gets named together with a rather obscure company name ('LRW | A Material Company), in conjunction with the phrases 'sweepstakes' and 'cash prizes', alarm bells are automatically set off in my head. My first thought would have been: how did this even get past the spam filter on my email account? Several Linden Lab emails ended u0p there looking less suspicious than that.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I took mine, but declined the money offer.   I'm not interested in winning anything (never do) so they wanted to know all these things,  I gave it to them freely, they owe me nothing.