Open letter to Linden Lab: Enforcing policies?

[Sid Nagy]

We all saw over the last few days how strict LL finds the fine print in their forums policies, to lock the for them uncomfortable threads.
Fine, a company has policies and they follow them up. Good. That's how policies work, right?  These forum policies do so in our disadvantage, but hey a trustworthy company that actively does what it promises, that should be the normal thing.

But: Linden Lab has a nice page about their bot policy too.
Official Bot policy. 

We all know that these are hardly enforced at all, laissez faire at best.  I think we as (paying) costumers have the right to expect and IMHO even demand that Linden Lab enforces all their own policies in the same way and not only in the advantage of themselves, meaning as it pleases the company.

Yes, the common clincher is: Take your business elsewhere then. But that feels as a non argument for covering flaws. Linden Lab is a respectable company and should deal with their policies in a respectable way.
It just doesn't feel right that bots snatch away land before your own eyes, that bots collect far more data about individuals than a lot of users are comfortable with to publish it inside and outside Second Life, that bots game the system, to name a few examples.

I seriously expect from Linden Lab, that they govern their policies as strict in world as they do on these forums.

Thank you.

Regards,

Sid Nagy

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Sid Nagy
English is not my native language, so improvements, improvements, improvements....

[Jaylinbridges]

Is it too early to say "In before the close" ?

[Theresa Tennyson]

27 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

We all saw over the last few days how strict LL finds the fine print in their forums policies, to lock the for them uncomfortable threads.
Fine, a company has policies and they follow them up. Good. That's how policies work, right?  These forum policies do so in our disadvantage, but hey a trustworthy company that actively does what it promises, that should be the normal thing.

But: Linden Lab has a nice page about their bot policy too.
Official Bot policy. 

We all know that these are hardly enforced at all, laissez faire at best.  I think we as (paying) costumers have the right to expect and IMHO even demand that Linden Lab enforces all their own policies in the same way and not only in the advantage of themselves, meaning as it pleases the company.

Yes, the common clincher is: Take your business elsewhere then. But that feels as a non argument for covering flaws. Linden Lab is a respectable company and should deal with their policies in a respectable way.
It just doesn't feel right that bots snatch away land before your own eyes, that bots collect far more data about individuals than a lot of users are comfortable with to publish it inside and outside Second Life, that bots game the system, to name a few examples.

I seriously expect from Linden Lab, that they govern their policies as strict in world as they do on these forums.

Thank you.

Regards,

Sid Nagy

 

How do the bots everyone knows you're referring to violate those policies? The only possible violation is the "scripted agent" flag, and it's not like everyone doesn't know they're bots.

[Qie Niangao]

The policy includes an "Enforcement" section that states "Linden Lab routinely looks at search results, and will treat use of bots to gain an unfair search advantage as an abuse issue. You do not need to file an abuse report for violations; Linden Lab monitors the search results."

Obviously not. It takes only a few seconds to find the next of many (many) abuses. On this matter, Linden Lab is monitoring nothing.

Now, this is a very old policy. It was introduced when the Lab took in-world Search very much more seriously than they do now, before Marketplace became their go-to for all things commerce-related.

If the Lab really doesn't care about bot-based blackhat SEO anymore, we should let the traffic gaming resume in earnest. The current crop of amateur bot-runners won't know what hit them.

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Qie Niangao

[Maitimo]

If traffic was totally removed as a metric altogether, so it has no effect on search results whatsoever, and all references to it removed from the TOS, the problem (and the traffic bots themselves) would disappear overnight.

 

[xDancingStarx]

I agree to some aspects and understand the OPs frustration. The problem, in regards of the topic of traffic, is however that a bot is defined like that:

"Bots, or scripted agents, are avatars controlled by computer programs rather than people"

People don't need bots to game traffic. What people often call bots may just as well be regular text viewer instances that are operated by people. They may be afk 24/7 but they're still not controlled by programs. For us this is impossible to know.

This topic isn't as easy to solve as it may look like at first glance IMO.

If I park my main account at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic? If I park my alt account at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic? If I park 2 alt accounts at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic? From some people I got a weird-face-smiley as response to my similar post in the other thread. I'd like to hear from these people what they think is actually the solution to this. Adjusting the algorithm how traffic is counted? How?

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Love Zhaoying]

My understanding is, Linden Lab only needs to enforce policies "as they see fit".

If there is no "harm" done, and if there is no "proof" as to why someone may be doing "a thing" (intent - for instance, it may not be in order to "game traffic"), then it may be difficult or questionable to enforce a rule that may not be actually broken.

Edited to add:

1. In my understanding, "Traffic" is the literal "Traffic counter" which is (or was, at least) shown in various place search reslts.. 

I believe, that this "Traffic" counter is not used or trusted much anymore by most experienced Second Life users.

2. Again in my understanding, "bots" which are "properly registered" as "scripted agents" should not contribute to "Traffic count".

4. However, "Scripted Agents" may still show up as "dots on a map".  This is NOT  the same as "traffic count".  Since "Traffic count" may be completely separate from "dots on a map", properly registered "scripted agents" may, as a side-effect, cause a misunderstanding that there are more non-Scripted Agent avatars on a parcel.  However, if those same "scripted agents" do not add to the official "Traffic Count", then they are not against the TOS related to "traffic count".

Edited January 23, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Rowan Amore]

54 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:

I agree to some aspects and understand the OPs frustration. The problem, in regards of the topic of traffic, is however that a bot is defined like that:

"Bots, or scripted agents, are avatars controlled by computer programs rather than people"

People don't need bots to game traffic. What people often call bots may just as well be regular text viewer instances that are operated by people. They may be afk 24/7 but they're still not controlled by programs. For us this is impossible to know.

This topic isn't as easy to solve as it may look like at first glance IMO.

If I park my main account at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic? If I park my alt account at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic? If I park 2 alt accounts at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic? From some people I got a weird-face-smiley as response to my similar post in the other thread. I'd like to hear from these people what they think is actually the solution to this. Adjusting the algorithm how traffic is counted? How?

 

 

A modicum of common sense, when seeing 20-30 'avatars' on a platform at a venue at the top of search with 0 avatars at the actual venue ever, would point to using those avatars to game traffic.  

[EliseAnne85]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

How do the bots everyone knows you're referring to violate those policies? The only possible violation is the "scripted agent" flag, and it's not like everyone doesn't know they're bots.

In one of the threads one of the people who seemed to be pro these bots&theirwebsite put up a link on how to get the quick dibs on cheap land.  However, I'm not going to visit their website at all.  One wrong click, and you could be keylogged.  My ex husband was.  These bot systems cannot be cheap, they are NOT in it for nothing.

What I feel the main problem is as Qie said, it's old policy.  Most of LL TOS is old.   They don't have a direct clause on how bots gamify the system in there, so it needs amending.  LL should  consider their residents and disallow "gaming the system"; i.e. talking here about games - fishing and others where bots are frankly nothing but thieves.  

How to disable bad bots and allow paid for honest bots, I have no idea how it could be done.  But, it should be done.

Edited January 23, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Ceka Cianci]

Is there an option in the linden official viewer search to use traffic as a factor? I can't find one.. It's definitely not putting up the same results as my classic search in places is in my third party viewer  that I have set to traffic..

If there isn't one and it only exists in 3rd party viewers, do we really want them eliminating things from those viewers? because they may just find more than traffic  to start to work on fixing.

This is all based on if there isn't a way to use traffic in the official viewer, because i can't find one..

[Randy Pole]

8 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

One wrong click, and you could be keylogged.

You know that's not actually how key loggers get onto your machine? You need to click and then install/run software - unless you have seriously compromised the security settings in your browser of choice.

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, xDancingStarx said:

If I park my main account at my friend's place for 24/7, am I gaming traffic?

I can never tell who's a recent alt of an old account, so I have to ask: Do you remember camping? Do you remember why camping became practically extinct?

Traffic-gaming is deeper than "bots" but the specific cited policy had to do with bots. Reducing the once overwhelming effect of traffic on Search ranking made it economically counterproductive to park normal viewer-connected avatars on most parcels for the purpose of gaming traffic. Now only social venues really benefit by traffic because that's where folks still (naively) sort their search results by traffic—so traffic gaming (by bot or otherwise) is now mostly isolated to that part of the grid where it does the most damage to Second Life's viability as a social platform.

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

A modicum of common sense, when seeing 20-30 'avatars' on a platform at a venue at the top of search with 0 avatars at the actual venue ever, would point to using those avatars to game traffic.  

In my earlier post, I attempt to propose that MAYBE LL defines "traffic" to be the official counter, which may not be affected by "scripted agents" vs. "dots on a map" (which may not impact "official traffic")? 

So, if "traffic" according to the TOS only means "Activity affecting the traffic counter"...then MAYBE these situations are technically not "gaming Traffic" according to the TOS?

[Ceka Cianci]

4 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I can never tell who's a recent alt of an old account, so I have to ask: Do you remember camping? Do you remember why camping became practically extinct?

Traffic-gaming is deeper than "bots" but the specific cited policy had to do with bots. Reducing the once overwhelming effect of traffic on Search ranking made it economically counterproductive to park normal viewer-connected avatars on most parcels for the purpose of gaming traffic. Now only social venues really benefit by traffic because that's where folks still (naively) sort their search results by traffic—so traffic gaming (by bot or otherwise) is now mostly isolated to that part of the grid where it does the most damage to Second Life's viability as a social platform.

Didn't LL used to pay  for traffic back then?  So much for so much traffic  per hour or day or something like that?

[Qie Niangao]

Just now, Ceka Cianci said:

Didn't LL used to pay  for traffic back then?  So much for so much traffic  per hour or day or something like that?

That was actually before my time, when they paid for something called "Dwell". I did manage to catch a store that made fun of the concept with its name, "Dwellget", a Target-like department store (which actually had quite a fun assortment of stuff from multiple creators on the shelves, before mall kiosks became common).

More recently, they used the Google Search Appliance to rank every search result on a bunch of custom factors that very heavily favored Traffic. Many sellers still think traffic matters to basic in-world merchandise search terms, but I'm sure it's nothing like it used to be. @Phil Deakinsknows all this history in great detail, of course.

31 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Is there an option in the linden official viewer search to use traffic as a factor?

Yeah, I don't know what specific conditions make the option appear, but I got it to come up searching Places, a la:

[xDancingStarx]

38 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

A modicum of common sense, when seeing 20-30 'avatars' on a platform at a venue at the top of search with 0 avatars at the actual venue ever, would point to using those avatars to game traffic.  

So on this issue you want Linden to act without definite proof ("would point to", "common sense"). I can see that it's easy to call for Linden to act based on "common sense" when it's favorable to oneself, but when it's not favorable to oneself I can easily see that Linden would be accused of acting this same way. But let's even assume that this were feasible (which I don't think it is), and let's say Linden removes the traffic of these places. What would happen? They would evade it. If this was based on "common sense" and avatars on one platform, they would build multiple platforms. They would probably build skyboxes. Fake it until "common sense" just won't work.

[Ceka Cianci]

6 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

That was actually before my time, when they paid for something called "Dwell". I did manage to catch a store that made fun of the concept with its name, "Dwellget", a Target-like department store (which actually had quite a fun assortment of stuff from multiple creators on the shelves, before mall kiosks became common).

More recently, they used the Google Search Appliance to rank every search result on a bunch of custom factors that very heavily favored Traffic. Many sellers still think traffic matters to basic in-world merchandise search terms, but I'm sure it's nothing like it used to be. @Phil Deakinsknows all this history in great detail, of course.

Yeah, I don't know what specific conditions make the option appear, but I got it to come up searching Places, a la:

Ah ok I see it now.. It shows up after you do your first search I guess..

Ok, I'm back on board! \o/

hehehehe

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Randy Pole said:

You know that's not actually how key loggers get onto your machine? You need to click and then install/run software - unless you have seriously compromised the security settings in your browser of choice.

I wasn't informed by my ex husband on how exactly the hackers got in nor what he did exactly, but his bank info was compromised.  And, then the hackers went after everyone on his contact list - including me..  My bank said do not click any links, and I closed my online banking and use voice activation now.  However, my bank security expert said "do not click on any links" period.  They said nothing of the above.  And, I kind of doubt what you are saying is completely true because hackers are all over Twitter and the crypto and the wallets.   Most bots are scammers and thieves, so best not to click on their links as they are phishing. 

There seem to be some differing opinions upon searching how keyloggers work.

Keyloggers invade PCs (and Macs, and Androids, and iPhones) in the same way that other malware does. They install when you click on a file attachment that you've been duped into opening—most commonly because you fell for a social engineering scheme or a cleverly designed phishing expedition.  

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Randy Pole said:

You know that's not actually how key loggers get onto your machine? You need to click and then install/run software - unless you have seriously compromised the security settings in your browser of choice.

Oh my sweet summer child.

Just. Wow.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Oh my sweet summer child.

Just. Wow.

PREPARE CONFLATION

Conflation ready.

CONFLATE PHISHING WITH KEYLOGGERS

Conflation complete.

[Sparkle Bunny]

People are supposed to declare their scripted agents to LL, right? So LL, in theory, should know who they are; their bot status should be in their profile, they should be required to have payment info used, they should show up on the map as a different colour to regular avatars, and I should be able to tick a box in land settings banning them from my parcel.

And if I find a bot that isn't marked as such, I should be able to report them to LL so that they can either be brought into complicance or banned.

Otherwise, I don't quite understand why LL bothers asking people to declare their scripted agents at all.

[Dorientje Woller]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

How do the bots everyone knows you're referring to violate those policies? The only possible violation is the "scripted agent" flag, and it's not like everyone doesn't know they're bots.

How about overruling the security settings of a landowner isn't violating the policies, I don't know what else is a violation. Example, house I have on a plot is having a "build in" security system, set in such way that I alone can access the house on top that the landowner granted me as only person access to that plot. Still those bots that everyone knows manage land into the house and remain there for a while. Putting them on a banlist ain't going to work either as they change number in the name on a regular base.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Putting them on a banlist ain't going to work either as they change number in the name on a regular base.

This is why I say bots should be required to pay a hefty membership fee, disposable bots encourages bad behavior.

[Artorius Constantine]

19 minutes ago, Sparkle Bunny said:

'I should be able to report them to LL so that they can either be brought into complicance or banned.'

Nope. It has been my experience that LL routinely ignores these reports. My neighbor has over half a dozen traffic bots, none listed as scripted agents, all on land set to show in search, and all have been reported by at least 3 people. They have been there over a year at least and are still there today.

[Dorientje Woller]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This is why I say bots should be required to pay a hefty membership fee, disposable bots encourages bad behavior.

My beef is why circumventing a software (viewer) feature isn't a violation at all. Or it's a bug that needs a serious fix.

Edited January 23, 2023 by Dorientje Woller