Local Chat logs

[Wisdom Davi]

Are public local chat logs shareble or does that violate TOS?

[Odaks]

The Community Standards form part of the Terms of Service and contains the following:-

"Except for the purpose of reporting abuse or any violation of policies to Linden Lab, the remote monitoring, posting or sharing of conversations without a participant’s consent are prohibited."

I think we have to regard the word "conversations" to be inclusive of any sort of conversation, irrespective of the manner in which such conversations might arise.

The public chat channel is, indeed, open to all for listening to, within the defined chat range distances. However, remote monitoring, posting or sharing of that is clearly prohibited without the necessary consent.

 

 https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/community-standards - Disclosure

Edited April 6, 2022 by Odaks
Correction

[Rowan Amore]

"Conversation" means text that originally came from Second Life chat or Second Life instant messages. If it's totally unattributed, then it isn't considered disclosure. Additionally, Residents are not punished for sharing or posting a comment such as "Bob Resident said, 'You're the greatest!'"

[Ceka Cianci]

I was in a sim one time and someone that wasn't there had something that logged our chat in local and then posted pieces of it to a group..

Normally I wouldn't mind, but they were listening in on a private meeting and then handing out bits and pieces of the transcript from a meeting they were not invited to let alone weren't even in the sim.. So they got AR'd and went bye bye for a little bit.

 

Disclosure

Sharing personal information about other users, either directly or indirectly, without their consent—including, but not limited to, gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual orientation, alternate account names (including account statuses, such as whether it is on hold, suspended, or active), and real-world location beyond what is provided by them in their user profile—is not allowed. Except for the purpose of reporting abuse or any violation of policies to Linden Lab, the remote monitoring, posting or sharing of conversations without a participant’s consent are prohibited.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Coffee Pancake]

We experimented with IRC relays for the Linux User Group meeting (ahhh halcyon days), even back then, in order to comply with the ToS the relay prim would have to ask permission of people to relay their chat out of SL.

Chat range extenders that relay local chat over a wide area for clubs and the like are an edge case, would be really nice if we could have a region setting for local chat range that went all the way up to "everywhere".

[Silent Mistwalker]

15 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We experimented with IRC relays for the Linux User Group meeting (ahhh halcyon days), even back then, in order to comply with the ToS the relay prim would have to ask permission of people to relay their chat out of SL.

Chat range extenders that relay local chat over a wide area for clubs and the like are an edge case, would be really nice if we could have a region setting for local chat range that went all the way up to "everywhere".

It's always been my understanding that the relays used for clubs etc are only used by the host/hostesses. At least, that was how it worked in the clubs we owned and operated.

[Jennifer Boyle]

11 hours ago, Odaks said:

The Community Standards form part of the Terms of Service and contains the following:-

"Except for the purpose of reporting abuse or any violation of policies to Linden Lab, the remote monitoring, posting or sharing of conversations without a participant’s consent are prohibited."

Reading that literally, which is the only way rules should be read, it appears that SL is the equivalent of a one-party state. It says, "a participant's," not "all participants'." Clearly, if multiple avatars participate in a conversation, only one need consent to its being shared.

It's similar to many states' laws regarding recording of conversations; one participant may record the conversation and share the recording without consent of the others, but a non-participant may not.

[Silent Mistwalker]

5 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Reading that literally, which is the only way rules should be read, it appears that SL is the equivalent of a one-party state. It says, "a participant's," not "all participants'." Clearly, if multiple avatars participate in a conversation, only one need consent to its being shared.

It's similar to many states' laws regarding recording of conversations; one participant may record the conversation and share the recording without consent of the others, but a non-participant may not.

That isn't how it works with SL. If you don't get permission from one other than yourself participant, you can't share it anywhere on LL's servers. You also need to be able to show you did get that permission.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Odaks]

2 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Clearly, if multiple avatars participate in a conversation, only one need consent to its being shared.

That would appear to completely defeat the object of maintaining some semblance of confidentiality. A disgruntled participant, for example, having been out-voted on a particular matter, would be free to publish details of the discussions throughout SL in an attempt to discredit the other participants. I would be somewhat surprised if this was intended.

Even read as @Silent Mistwalkerpoints out, that permission is needed from one other-than-yourself participant, this would still seem to be permitted.

[Silent Mistwalker]

34 minutes ago, Odaks said:

That would appear to completely defeat the object of maintaining some semblance of confidentiality. A disgruntled participant, for example, having been out-voted on a particular matter, would be free to publish details of the discussions throughout SL in an attempt to discredit the other participants. I would be somewhat surprised if this was intended.

Even read as @Silent Mistwalkerpoints out, that permission is needed from one other-than-yourself participant, this would still seem to be permitted.

In the past you were not allowed to share any logs (on LL's servers), with or without permission from any participants. They eased up a bit on it about 10 years ago.

LL "rents" their servers now so they also have to comply with any "rules" set forth by Amazon.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Lucia Nightfire]

5 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Chat range extenders that relay local chat over a wide area for clubs and the like are an edge case, would be really nice if we could have a region setting for local chat range that went all the way up to "everywhere".

You mean the thing that was implemented over two years ago and only LL can use ATM? 😉

[Jennifer Boyle]

3 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

You mean the thing that was implemented over two years ago and only LL can use ATM? 😉

There are chat range extenders that anyone with rez rights can use.

If a rule doesn't clearly reflect the intent of the rulemaker, the onus is on them. As I said before, rules should be read literally. If LL meant all participants, they could have and should have said "all participants'" instead of "a participant's." If they meant one other participant's, they could have and should have said "one other participant's" instead of "a participant's." Absent a statement about their intent from LL, saying that they meant anything other than exactly what they said is speculative.

Publication of chat by a third party that surreptitiously recorded it is prohibited no matter how one interprets it.

In RL. I live in a one-party state. I know that, if I am on a conference call, anyone on the call who also lives in a one-party state is free to record the call and do as they please with the recording, so I need to either not be on calls with people I don't trust or not say anything I don't want made public.

I don't understand why anyone would discuss anything sensitive in open chat, anyway. Wouldn't anyone use IM for that? If you need a group discussion, it's easy enough to IM with several people. I would never be completely confident that no one was listening in on open chat.

Isn't a confidentiality requirement that applies only to LL servers next to meaningless? It's always seemed strange to me that LL didn't put any impediment at all in place to prevent publication of IM logs elsewhere. I wouldn't expect a big effort, but they could, for example, say in the TOS that text entered in IM and chat is subject to copyright, and the person who enters it retains all rights. That would give people a fairly big stick if it was published elsewhere.

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Isn't a confidentiality requirement that applies only to LL servers next to meaningless? It's always seemed strange to me that LL didn't put any impediment at all in place to prevent publication of IM logs elsewhere. I wouldn't expect a big effort, but they could, for example, say in the TOS that text entered in IM and chat is subject to copyright, and the person who enters it retains all rights. That would give people a fairly big stick if it was published elsewhere.

LL does not have legal jurisdiction over servers they do not own or rent.

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

There are chat range extenders that anyone with rez rights can use.

If a rule doesn't clearly reflect the intent of the rulemaker, the onus is on them. As I said before, rules should be read literally. If LL meant all participants, they could have and should have said "all participants'" instead of "a participant's." If they meant one other participant's, they could have and should have said "one other participant's" instead of "a participant's." Absent a statement about their intent from LL, saying that they meant anything other than exactly what they said is speculative.

Publication of chat by a third party that surreptitiously recorded it is prohibited no matter how one interprets it.

In RL. I live in a one-party state. I know that, if I am on a conference call, anyone on the call who also lives in a one-party state is free to record the call and do as they please with the recording, so I need to either not be on calls with people I don't trust or not say anything I don't want made public.

I don't understand why anyone would discuss anything sensitive in open chat, anyway. Wouldn't anyone use IM for that? If you need a group discussion, it's easy enough to IM with several people. I would never be completely confident that no one was listening in on open chat.

Isn't a confidentiality requirement that applies only to LL servers next to meaningless? It's always seemed strange to me that LL didn't put any impediment at all in place to prevent publication of IM logs elsewhere. I wouldn't expect a big effort, but they could, for example, say in the TOS that text entered in IM and chat is subject to copyright, and the person who enters it retains all rights. That would give people a fairly big stick if it was published elsewhere.

I was mostly focusing on this part of Coffee's comment:

5 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

would be really nice if we could have a region setting for local chat range that went all the way up to "everywhere".

LL implemented region console settings to change whisper, say and shout ranges, but did not expose them yet so only Lindens can use it ATM.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

LL implemented region console settings to change whisper, say and shout ranges, but did not expose them yet so only Lindens can use it ATM.

Did someone forget to file a JIRA to expose that to region owners, maybe make some UI .. what that my job, I don't work for LL and no one told me, but maybe it was ? Sorry 😳

@Mazidox Lindencan we get this please? It doesn't need to be some over engineered rocket surgery solution, a status message in local chat when entering a region "chat range is now XXm" will be sufficient .. tbh, don't even need to bother with whisper and shout as no one actually uses those on purpose, could even skip sanity checking the inputs .. if a region owner sets chat range to 0 .. well, good for them.

[Silent Mistwalker]

11 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Did someone forget to file a JIRA to expose that to region owners, maybe make some UI .. what that my job, I don't work for LL and no one told me, but maybe it was ? Sorry 😳

@Mazidox Lindencan we get this please? It doesn't need to be some over engineered rocket surgery solution, a status message in local chat when entering a region "chat range is now XXm" will be sufficient .. tbh, don't even need to bother with whisper and shout as no one actually uses those on purpose, could even skip sanity checking the inputs .. if a region owner sets chat range to 0 .. well, good for them.

 

You mean have the ability to turn chat off completely on a region and/or parcel? I could deal with that. 

[Odaks]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

tbh, don't even need to bother with whisper and shout as no one actually uses those on purpose

Er... yes, they do!

Not that often, I must admit, but when the opportunity arises, both whisper and shout can form neat embellishments to the chat.

(Gaggy-garble would be pretty awful if it wasn't forced into whisper, too!) 

[Bree Giffen]

On 4/5/2022 at 7:25 PM, Wisdom Davi said:

Are public local chat logs shareble or does that violate TOS?

You mean those logs placed on the beaches with sit animation? I don't think you can take them for your own use and probably don't have rights enabled to copy them. Try searching on the marketplace for logs or benches in the outdoor furniture section.

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Bree Giffen said:

You mean those logs placed on the beaches with sit animation? I don't think you can take them for your own use and probably don't have rights enabled to copy them. Try searching on the marketplace for logs or benches in the outdoor furniture section.

This is funny and you also have a good point! 

Funny! You have a good point!

Funny, you have a good point.

🤔