J.P. Morgan investing in Tilia.

[animats]

1 hour ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Yes, that has to do with your Data in Tilia. So that would be your credit card info, your name, and your address.

Looking at the API, it's clear what information gets passed to Tilia. It's just like credit card processing. Buyer, seller, product description, and SKU ("Stock Keeping Unit", the seller's product ID.). So Tilia / J.P. Morgan will have your purchase history. Since the Linden Lab acquisition of Casper's vendor system, they'll have that for in-world purchases, too. Also user-to-user transactions, such as tips in strip clubs.

Banks use that info for marketing purposes. Here's the ACLU's take on that.

California residents can opt out of having your address used for marketing. There's an email address: privacy@tilia.io. But not an easy opt-out button. So opting out will probably, as the ACLU says, involve some difficulties, since email doesn't authenticate the sender.There's also an online form operated by the California Office of the Attorney General which will cause the OAG to send the business an opt out notice. This is for use when there isn't a convenient opt-out button.

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

But even then, LL and Tillia are two separate entities. Meaning someone from LL may not know much about the innerworkings of TIllia and someone from Tillia may not know the innerworkings from LL. 

True. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we residents do not know the inner workings of either LL or Tilia.  This shouldn't stop us from speculating on what may go on in their boardrooms, but we shouldn't take our speculations too seriously. As someone pointed out casually a while ago, the people who profit at times like this are the merchants selling tinfoil.

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

True. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we residents do not know the inner workings of either LL or Tilia.  This shouldn't stop us from speculating on what may go on in their boardrooms, but we shouldn't take our speculations too seriously. As someone pointed out casually a while ago, the people who profit at times like this are the merchants selling tinfoil.

But there is a big difference between making speculations and acting like you know what will happen and essentially fear mongering. 

[Rolig Loon]

8 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

But there is a big difference between making speculations and acting like you know what will happen and essentially fear mongering.

... which is why I suggested that we shouldn't take speculations too seriously.  It's fun to be an armchair lawyer or business analyst on a Saturday afternoon, but it's very easy to let imaginations run amok and spark all sorts of conspiracy theories.  As my Mom used to say at times, "Don't get too wild in there.  Someone's going to get hurt."

[Rowan Amore]

JPM has had my info for years for whatever that's worth.  And OMG, I've used my Chase card for SL, too. 

[Innula Zenovka]

A first step for anyone concerned about the privacy of their data might be to study section 8 of Tilia's new Privacy Policy and then, as I did, to follow the appropriate link in the paragraph beginning "For more information on how to opt-out of receiving internet-based advertising."

[Rowan Amore]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Tilia only interested in your personal information in regards to processing credit?  To purchase Ls, you don't need to provide anything more than your payment info as always.  JPM would then only have that info which you already provided to Tilia to process credit.

Wouldn't your purchase of Lindens or inworld purchases be unknown to Tilia?

[Innula Zenovka]

23 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Tilia only interested in your personal information in regards to processing credit?  To purchase Ls, you don't need to provide anything more than your payment info as always.  JPM would then only have that info which you already provided to Tilia to process credit.

Wouldn't your purchase of Lindens or inworld purchases be unknown to Tilia?

That's what I thought originally, but then I remembered that Tilia seem to handle L$ marketplace transactions, and then I read the Case Studies section on the Tilia website:

Quote

The Challenge
Second Life wanted a fully-functioning economy that benefited creators. In addition to needing the ability to accept payments, Second Life needed to offer Stored Value Wallet to support the virtual economy, and enable creators’ to extract real money from in-world earnings.

The Solution
Tilia was created by the team at Second Life as a compliant solution to power its entire economy [emphasis mine]. After spending years and significant resources securing Money Transmitter Licenses in all required US states and territories, Tilia now accepts payments and processes payouts for Second Life’s $650 million USD economy.

And they quote Brad Oberwager as saying “Tilia is built to scale and already safely and securely supports transactions in the Internet’s leading virtual world.”

So all that suggests to me that they handle L$ transactions, too.   That seems to be the surface meaning of the words, anyway, and I suspect that US money-transfer compliance laws must require them to maintain an audit trail of in-world L$ transfers, as well as Lindex transactions and cash-outs, and to flag and report potentially suspicious activity as necessary.   The equivalent UK and EU reporting regimes would, were LL based on my side of the Atlantic.

The vast majority of in-world transactions are going to be well below the levels that attract any official interest, of course, but systems have to be in place to monitor and record all transactions.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Innula Zenovka

[Rowan Amore]

30 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

So all that suggests to me that they handle L$ transactions, too

But this is from the Tilia FAQ in the knowledge base...

Do I need to use Tilia to buy Linden dollars?

No. Tilia is not involved in the Linden dollar purchase process. You can continue to use your payment method on file to buy Linden dollars and do not need to provide any additional personal information.

[Sammy Huntsman]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

But this is from the Tilia FAQ in the knowledge base...

Do I need to use Tilia to buy Linden dollars?

No. Tilia is not involved in the Linden dollar purchase process. You can continue to use your payment method on file to buy Linden dollars and do not need to provide any additional personal information.

Tillia only handles Linden Dollar purchases, outside of the US. I think. I remember it saying somewhere something like that. 

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Tillia only handles Linden Dollar purchases, outside of the US. I think. I remember it saying somewhere something like that. 

Tilia is ONLY involved with processing credit.  Anyone outside the US still uses Paypal, Skrill or an approved credit card.to purchase Lindens.  AFAIK, that is all you need to buy and sell Lindens.  It's only when you want to convert those to USD and process the OUT of your USD account that Tilia needs personal information.

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Rowan Amore said:

Tilia is ONLY involved with processing credit.  Anyone outside the US still uses Paypal, Skrill or an approved credit card.to purchase Lindens.  AFAIK, that is all you need to buy and sell Lindens.  It's only when you want to convert those to USD and process the OUT of your USD account that Tilia needs personal information.

 

I honestly thought I was paying Tillia and then they paid LL to fill said Linden dollar order. But then again, I honestly don't know the inner workings of how all that works. 

[Arielle Popstar]

2 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

Grumpity was clearly a little startled by the question, and I believe that she was referring to the simple fact that privacy laws are complex, and not being a lawyer herself, she was not prepared to answer in detail.  It's not an area where any sane person would want to take a chance of saying something wrong.

Personally, I can't see a reason why Grumpity or Patch would be familiar with the fine print of JPM's investment.  Perhaps you should email Tilia and get an answer from them.

Considering Grumpity's position in the Lab, I would be surprised if she didn't have familiarity at least with the Privacy policies affecting residents, even if not the fine print of JPM's investment deal. I am of the opinion that it was more in how to word the answer to that question without causing alarm among the populace, that was at the root of the hesitancy in her response.

Quote

Are you implying that the privacy laws governing Facebook and Google are similar to those governing companies holding international money transmitter licenses?  That's amusing.  Did you LOOK at the link Innula posted?

Looking at the Privacy Policy, I am noting there are different types of data that might or might not be collected. The way I read some of it is that they have different rules and leeway's in what and how they can share those different types of data. They collect personal data obviously that allow them to act as a Money transmitter but looking carefully at that Privacy Policy, they seem to be giving themselves leeway to collect data that is not directly required for them to act in that capacity alone. 

Quote

Er, no.  Tilia's USA GLBA compliance statement is straightforward.  It states unambiguously that Tilia will not be sharing any customer's personal information with any affiliates (including LL) or non-affiliates (basically, any other corporate entity) for either marketing purposes or creditworthiness evaluation.

And yet on their Cookies page they state: "We also allow third parties to collect information about you through cookies and other tracking technologies." Another questionable one is back on the PP page where they state that they can use our information for: Advertising. Provide you or serve you with advertising or information based on your activity on our Services and on third-party sites and applications. To do that obviously requires them to track and collect information about our browsing habits and purchases or at the least allow a third party to do so. That strikes me again as being beyond what they need to know for the purposes of money transmitting. 

So the USA GLBA might be relevant for that data that is collected directly for their Money Transmitter function but other data they or their affiliates collect would not be under the required GLBA compliance I would suspect.

[Innula Zenovka]

17 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

But this is from the Tilia FAQ in the knowledge base...

Do I need to use Tilia to buy Linden dollars?

No. Tilia is not involved in the Linden dollar purchase process. You can continue to use your payment method on file to buy Linden dollars and do not need to provide any additional personal information.

I dunno.  I've just tried to add another credit card to my various SL payment methods and was asked to agree to this

These Terms of Service include this clause, which seems to me to describe buying L$ and using them in-world

Quote

5.  Digital Tokens

5.1.  Issuance

The Tilia Service may include Tilia issuing digital tokens to you, which can be used to access services and content within a Platform (“Digital Tokens”). Furthermore, Digital Tokens that are acquired from the sale by you of a Digital Good on an applicable Platform are deemed stored value in accordance with Section 4 (Stored Value Balances). If there are any inconsistencies between the two sections, then Section 4 controls.

The manner in which you obtain access or use the Digital Tokens will depend on the Publisher and will be disclosed to you by the Publisher in the terms and conditions between you and the Publisher or on the Website.

5.2.  Acquiring Digital Tokens

Where Tilia issues Digital Tokens in connection with your use of a Publisher’s Platform, you may acquire Digital Tokens in the following ways:

a)  From another Platform user from the sale of a Digital Good that the you create and sell within the Platform; and/or
b)  From purchasing them from Tilia within the Publisher’s Platform.
 

When I try to make a purchase on the Marketplace I find this when I come to pay

 

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I dunno.  I've just tried to add another credit card to my various SL payment methods and was asked to agree to this

 

I recall having seen similar before where it said Powered by Tilia which is why I believe that Tilia's tentacles reach all the way through the S/L economy.

[Rowan Amore]

20 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I dunno.  I've just tried to add another credit card to my various SL payment methods and was asked to agree to this

These Terms of Service include this clause, which seems to me to describe buying L$ and using them in-world

When I try to make a purchase on the Marketplace I find this when I come to pay

 

I haven't changed payment methods in quite some time and seeing that update was from May of this year, perhaps they have changed and I'll stand corrected.  

Perhaps this change was made because of their negotiations with JPM?  Seems timely.

[Gabriele Graves]

I would like to have something clarified after reading these last few pages.

Are we saying that a person who buys things inworld via CasperVend or on MP will have their purchases (past, present and future) not only directly associated with their avatar account but also with whatever real life identity has been provided to LL and this can be passed from LL to Tilia to JP Morgan-Chase Bank and to third-parties as outlined in the privacy policy?
 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[animats]

44 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Are we saying that a person who buys things inworld via CasperVend or on MP will have their purchases (past, present and future) not only directly associated with their avatar account but also with whatever real life identity has been provided to LL and this can be passed from LL to Tilia to JP Morgan-Chase Bank and to third-parties as outlined in the privacy policy?

That's a good question for LL. Tilia/JP Morgan Chase is offering an API which supports that. Whether LL will use, or is using, all those features is a good question.

There are three announced Tilia services:

• TiliaDirect - receives money from credit cards, etc.
• TiliaLedger - maintains the accounts of who owns how many tokens of what kind.
• TiliaPay - pays out money, currently only via PayPal, but soon through usual bank methods.

Second Life uses TiliaPay, seems to use TiliaDirect, and may use TiliaLedger. It's not yet clear whether LL/SL is outsourcing L$ to L$ transaction handling to TiliaLedger.

Other than the advertising and data collection problem, this looks like a win. Money balances should be handled by an banking organization that's supervised by financial regulators. The crypto world tried not doing without regulation, and it didn't end well.

I'd like to see a nice big "opt out of all Tilia advertising and marketing data collection" button. If you're logged in, it should only take one click. No need for any further "verification". The California Consumer Privacy Act requires that California businesses (which Tilia is) "provide a clear and conspicuous “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link on their website that allows you to submit an opt-out request." A vague mention of an email address hidden deep down in the text of the privacy policy might not be compliant with that.

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I would like to have something clarified after reading these last few pages.

Are we saying that a person who buys things inworld via CasperVend or on MP will have their purchases (past, present and future) not only directly associated with their avatar account but also with whatever real life identity has been provided to LL and this can be passed from LL to Tilia to JP Morgan-Chase Bank and to third-parties as outlined in the privacy policy?
 

I'm curious as to why anyone would care?  You all are speaking about data mining I'm assuming?  We are all data mined just about everywhere we go on the internet but it's all AI generated to match things that you like to buy if you buy on the internet.

Why would LL, Tilia, JPM be interested to know that I just bought a BOM nose for my Dinkie?  Let alone have the time to be interested or care.

If one is worried about SPAM.  There are ways we can opt out of those.  But, again, data mining is AI generated.  I get 50 emails in a row from Ebay over the course of a few days.  I could care less as some of the things they send me I actually buy and it saves me time.  This is true for me all over the internet.  FB sends me great adverts.  FB has the best cosmetics, imo, and at great prices.  Some data mining I love.  The rest I could care less if anyone knows I bought a BOM nose for my Dinkie and so would the rest of the world care less.

Are people worried about spam from other virtual worlds or what exactly?  

[Rowan Amore]

3 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I'm curious as to why anyone would care?  You all are speaking about data mining I'm assuming?  We are all data mined just about everywhere we go on the internet but it's all AI generated to match things that you like to buy if you buy on the internet.

Why would LL, Tilia, JPM be interested to know that I just bought a BOM nose for my Dinkie?  Let alone have the time to be interested or care.

If one is worried about SPAM.  There are ways we can opt out of those.  But, again, data mining is AI generated.  I get 50 emails in a row from Ebay over the course of a few days.  I could care less as some of the things they send me I actually buy and it saves me time.  This is true for me all over the internet.  FB sends me great adverts.  FB has the best cosmetics, imo, and at great prices.  Some data mining I love.  The rest I could care less if anyone knows I bought a BOM nose for my Dinkie and so would the rest of the world care less.

Are people worried about spam from other virtual worlds or what exactly?  

Not everything everyone buys is G rated.  Maybe someone doesn't want targeted ads because they bought female genitalia amd are male in RL or vice versa.  Or BDSM gear and an ad for something pops up while you're at work.  It's a privacy issue.  Who is doing what with your info and where.

[PheebyKatz]

If J.P. wants to see what kinda underwear and stuff I shop for, that's his problem. Not sure what good it'll do anyone, but whatever.

I own a giant, flying maxi pad that seats 4, also. Let him make of that what he will.

Edited October 23, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[EliseAnne85]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Not everything everyone buys is G rated.  Maybe someone doesn't want targeted ads because they bought female genitalia amd are male in RL or vice versa.  Or BDSM gear and an ad for something pops up while you're at work.  It's a privacy issue.  Who is doing what with your info and where.

Oh.  Privacy issues, but our main internet browsers are pretty much G-rated.  I mostly get clothes, shoes, cosmetics.  Even if I were shopping for a real life corset and those ads popped up at work that could be embarrassing but I wouldn't be on my computer at work, I'd be on their computer and their main internet browser.  

Well, it appears at least people can opt out because I wouldn't want adult rated things popping up on my internet browser.  That's my business.

I've never had any particular type of item pop up from my being on SL but I have had invites to other "games" but the game picture is G-rated on the browser.  

 

[Charlotte Bartlett]

4 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I honestly thought I was paying Tillia and then they paid LL to fill said Linden dollar order. But then again, I honestly don't know the inner workings of how all that works. 

No. It has been since day 1 you have been buying from another resident.  They just provide the exchange.   It has always been documented.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

12 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I would like to have something clarified after reading these last few pages.

Are we saying that a person who buys things inworld via CasperVend or on MP will have their purchases (past, present and future) not only directly associated with their avatar account but also with whatever real life identity has been provided to LL and this can be passed from LL to Tilia to JP Morgan-Chase Bank and to third-parties as outlined in the privacy policy?
 

I think Tilia know that I've paid L$n to a particular resident, and send a message to the simulator/marketplace to confirm the transfer has taken place, at which point CasperVend/the Marketplace release the goods to me, but they don't actually know what the goods are.   LL know, but Tilia don't.

Mastercard know I make a number of payments each month, but don't know what I'm buying each time I visit Amazon or the supermarket or wherever.    They just know how much I'm spending there on each occasion.

Similarly, my bank knows how much I spend on Mastercard each month when the bill arrives, but doesn't know where I've spent it.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Innula Zenovka

[Love Zhaoying]

17 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Stabbing a little in the dark here but I would venture at least to the degree that Facebook and Google does.

I like it when you get a little stabby!