llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE) changes resulting from Privacy Policy

[Sabean Pagan 17]

Speaking on a purely personal basis, as someone who used to be able to afford to rent several sims from LL and who can no longer afford to do so in the current economic climate (mostly down the UK government's taxation) , the who is online has been invaluable to me. I had a need to ban a number of residents from my sims, some people hold grudges, most I have muted but that does not stop visits, from time to time, from previous pests. Knowing if they are online gives at least a 'forewarned is forearmed' sense of security (motto of the Royal Observers Corps).

From a purely selfish and personal point of view, there may be times when I am AFK and in busy mode and someone will contact me. If I'm at work I could be away for 12 hours, if I know they are offline when I am on then I am not upsetting anyone by them thinking I am ignoring them, same if they think I am offline, works both ways.

 

The who is online is, I believe, an innoccous feature that does a lot of good and zero harm. I would like to add my name to those who would like the service retained please.

 

 

[Marigold Devin 1,344]

I'm sure I'm not the only person in SL who uses an online tracker device for reasons of convenience. I don't run a business, even though not a business owner. I've found having an online tracker HUD really useful for the best part of four years now, and it was a really useful tool when we had the ghosting issue  that I was involved with prior to March 2011 (although hopefully this issue is long gone now).

I'd like to think that I've never abused the ability to view the true online status of other people, and have never felt at all threatened that other people have been able to view my true online status. After all, in Second Life we have the ability to mute/block and AR if absolutely necessary.

It seems pointless and ridiculous of SL to even consider blocking true online status from anyone, and on the JIRA requesting this, it appears the person who created the JIRA has a habit of attracting griefers.  Sad fact for them is, even if LL do block devices and TPVs' ability to see true online status, griefers and stalkers will always find a way of penetrating that "shield". Meanwhile, those who have a legitimate and harmless use get penalised and that's just unacceptable.





[cougarmistress 0]

Im just going to be blunt, I can think of no reason other than some one up to no good that anyone would be this hung up on line status.    I did not think not seeing seeing  the viewers would be that big a deal til i was victimized today by an alt pretending to be a newbie that let it slip that they were on Singularity ,   Let's be honest  , NO one new to SL ends up on a third party viewer their first day .     Now they want to completely hide online status ,  WHY ? Unless you are up to no good , why would you ever need to hide the fact you are online ?? There is busy mode and away status , both of which work just fine if you get busy .     Most builders I know use an alt , if they need complete privacy .    I reiterate unless you are up to no good there is no reason  to hide that you are online .    At least get the balls to make an alt for that so you don't hurt the people you want to hide from .       LL is just helping the people making SL more and more unpleasant to be in with this moves .  This makes me wonder what the Lindens are up to themselves since they think it is such a good idea to hide and creep like thives in the night.

[Aphrodite Ahren 0]

When you have a business that uses vendors and it sends out items preferrablly by checking online status so people dont get capped out and then you have to redeliver when each one contacts you individually. It also helps like in my shop people may leave messages and see if I am online or not. I know for me many friends I wouldnt jsut chat not knowing if there online or not. Also I much prefer and it is so much easier to rely on the hud for seeing my friends in really time then remebering to looking the the friends list every so often which I dont do to see if there on, but having a hud lets me know by a glance there on. many times i get rid of the whole big conversation box when I build yet my online lets me know my friends on. I also like being able to go to a shop and if i see the owner or helpers is on by there online board I am more likley to im them with a question that usually leads me to buying there product. Why does it seem that LL wants to break more items that work, to fix an item or something already broke. I wont even buy anything any more of MP for me or friends unless there on because it never gets delivered from being capped. LL needs to fix that any many problems but not make it so impossible with all that works.

[Innula Zenovka 2,933]

Why are you so interested in knowing the online status of people who're neither on your friends list nor members of the same group as you, if they've set their preferences only to show their status to friends and group members?      If I need to contact someone who's not on my list, it doesn't really matter to me if they're online or not when I IM them -- if they are, they are, and if they aren't, they aren't, and if it's important to either of us, we normally manage to touch bases sooner or later.

To my mind, it's not about privacy so much as about having the good manners to respect other people's preferences. 

[Gary Foxclaw 0]

I understand that more than likely linden labs will proceed with the disabling of detecting if someone is online or not through scripts. even though it will break many systems for club owners, builders, and delivery systems. I just hope they have it figured out how to market sl to people who will be paying customers once they tick off most of there paying customers with all these "proposed changes", which seem to benefit people who want privacy for there avatars.

While i see why people have a wish for privacy, i for one only check if someone is online if i have reason to. maybe i am wrong but if people really have a wish for privacy, shouldn't alot of changes occur. the ability to view through prims needs to be removed, wireframe removed. ability to "look" into sims revoked.  the jira issue was due to being stalked, and if the stalker knows where you are in sl, they can look to see if you are online or not. never mind hiding if your online. unless like others have said, you have neferious reasons to do so. which case, again. make an alt, and don't have friends on the alt. and your problem is solved.

I would personally love to see the RL setup of the people who are so concerned about privacy. they must live in a building with no windows, a steel re-enforced door, all fully sound proofed and thermally insulated. all behind 40 foot cement walls around there property.

[Desiree Gant 0]

This funtion is extremely usefull if you have a litle bussines. Let me explain. if you have "Online Status" for your employes, they are free to walk in SL. If you are forced to keep the employes in your bussines, you will pay more for they time. Is a very small reason. Other reason to keep this function , from my opinion, is not really a intrusion in personal life, other way to verify if someone is online is a simple IM. Intrussion in personal life is less ussing this funstion than sending a IM. Sory for my limited english, SL was my teacher and i still learn it,

[Verena Vuckovic 3]

Once again Linden Lab is fixing a 'problem' that doesn't actually exist.  Par for the course.

The fact that someone knows one is online is irrelevant if there is nothing they can do. There are already functions ( certainly in Phoenix ) to block IMs, notecards, etc,  from all non-friends. And of course there is mute.

So the only situation in which a person can actually DO anything ( griefing, nuisance chat, scripts, etc ) as a result of knowing you are online is when they are on the same sim as you.  But hold on.......if a person is on the same sim as you they will know you are online anyway as you'll be on radar !

What's more....I would find it preposterous that anyone appearing on a public sim, where any member of SL may see they are online, protest about their online 'privacy' status being invaded. The concept doesn't really make a great deal of sense in the first place.

Not that that ever swayed anyone at Linden Lab.

 

 

 

 

[Jack Abraham 1]

Ela, you misunderstand: My system failed when the communications hub was derezed, but returned to operation as soon as a new copy of it was rezzed. It can be done; I've done it, and I'm considering open-sourcing the scripts.

[Verena Vuckovic 3]

Actually its worth pointing out an entire group of people who would be affected.....and whom nobody has mentioned either in the JIRA or here. And it is a group of considerable size.

I refer, of course, to the many people in SL who have alts. And of course, SL being SL, those alts may not necessarily be friends of ( or even know under the alt avatar ) the same friends the main account has. In my experience of SL, this is a sizeable portion of the people online at any time !

And of course, one of the things people in an alt account invariably want to know is whether their partner, friends, etc from their main account are online.  Of course, by definition, not being on the friends list of the friends of their main account......they *don't* know that. Not without an online tracker of some sort.

This *could* be solved by allowing alts to see the online status of friends from a main account. It would mean all alts that want to use this would have to be registered as alts.

[amy34 Twine 0]

I use the online tracker hud myself and have now for a couple years due to the fact that I to have friends from all over the world and major different time zones and it makes it so much easier that when there on line and I am offline , That it goes to my email and lets me know that they are online, so I can log in to talk and hang out with them.. Second of all I also use it due to the fact I have been stalked and harrassed for 2 years now as well and have reported this person a few times but nothing gets really done about it.. So I use the online tracker for knowing when this person is online so I make sure I am offline when they show up online.. And if I am online and this person shows up online my online tracker lets me know, And I hurry and log off just so I don't have to deal with them.. When my husband died this program has helped me alot, Cause the last few months I have rarely came on cause I just been having a really hard time being on SL at this time, but I rely on my online tracker to notify me by email when those special people that me and my husband have met and became like family with on SL come online, I then will log in to SL to go see them and talk with them.. Cause I don't give out my personal information for people to just call me that I am close to cause that is dangerous cause you can never be to sure if the person is who they say they are even though you have grown fond of someone on the program.. So the online tracker has sooo many benefits for me..  Someone mentioned in one of the replies earlier that if someone is hiding there online status to begin with then there most likely up to no good and off harassing people or doing other things that they are not suppose too. Cause if your hiding from certain people on there, then why not delete them so they will not know your online.. Why try to hide the fact your online when you are online????  Please I ask that they really do not consider taking away the use of the online tracker huds.. I would actually really think about leaving sl perm if I am not able to use it anymore.. Cause what will be the point, I will not know when my certain close friends are on and I will never know if my stalker is online so I can make sure I am not on... I try to do everything possible to avoid drama and problems. Thats why I use the HUD.. SO please I know that it isn't in affect to stop the use of the HUDS at this time, And I really hope that they don't take our rights away from using them either.. Thomas Conover products have truely been a blessing for me and my real life family.. In like I said so many ways.. Thank you for allowing me to voice my opinion...

[Qie Niangao 2,583]

---

Jack Abraham wrote:

Ela, you misunderstand: My system failed when the communications hub was derezed,

but returned to operation as soon as a new copy of it was rezzed

. It can be done; I've done it, and I'm considering open-sourcing the scripts.

---

Never mind open-sourcing them, just explain the sorcery they contain!

I was with you, right up until you said "new copy"... then you lost me.

(Sorry, this is all an extreme tangent, but as long as we're off in the weeds anyway: It is absolutely possible to make a comms network consisting only of in-world scripts that is more reliable than anything that can be achieved using external services. It is, however, extremely difficult, requiring at least three redundant in-world "servers" running on different sim RC channels, and some mighty hairy protocols. Nonetheless, they can be more reliable simply by virtue of never having to pass outside LL's network. ... All that said, this is extremely silly: It is by no means a "trivial" matter to replace DATA_ONLINE functionality with some laggy, kludged-together network of grid-distributed scripts -- even for the single narrow use-case it was supposed to address.)

[Missy Telling 0]

It will be an extreme shame if this change occurs.  I am still a part of Second Life because I get to see my wonderful friends from all over the world.  Life is busy so to be able to get an email that a friend is online makes it possible to see them much more frequently than otherwise possible.  This change will likely make people who have been here longer and come mainly for friends to gradually leave SL.

The function is also extremely helpful for when someone needs my help and we are having difficulty meeting up.

LL continually amazes me at how poorly they understand their customers.  Development of new features will come to a screaming halt by restricting new features, allowing them only if the LL viewer has them.  They were getting free development help.  LL has such a poor track record of knowing what people want, they would have (and did in some cases) turn down many popular features.  Always so sad when you see something needlessly ruined.

[Tiff Aristocrat 0]

As a business owner I have several hundred on my f friends list but I really dont care when most of them go on or offline.  Because of that and the stupid blue box that comes up on my screen everytime an avatar goes on or offline (which is very distracting when im creating and building) i turned linden labs feature of online friends OFF.  I do care however when a handful of people are online, so that it was i use avatar online for  .  . . it only tells me the people that I want to know are online.

 

As for MY online status .  . .  I dont give a rats *&%^ who knows if I'm online or offline.  No one can track where I am.  My feeling all of this is just because linden labs are too inept at building viewers and others have come along and built better ones.  Its the 3rd party viewers that linden labs is targeting and this is the fallout from that.  Get your heads outta your A*&%$'s linden labs and build better a better viewer instead of all this other nonsense.

 

When I owned an SL club my employees were always worried about the competition and what they were doing.  I said look . . you can waste your time and energy on things that you have no control over and really dont matter, or you can concentrate on growing THIS businesses into something that you would be proud of.  Concentrate also on improving yourself to be the best you can be.  I grew the business into one of the biggest clubs in SL.  There is your lesson linden labs.

[BlckCobra Shikami 21]

I won't repeat what I already stated in the jira the post refers to, but I find it extremely odd that a vital function like that will be removed because a few people want to hide in a game which lives from the interaction between its residents.

Privacy is surely an important good and should be respected, but removing such a function breaks a bunch of scripted content which makes Second Life so special. People should have the opportunity to hide their status, but not by removing a valuable function for all others. A server side status flag, activated via the profile for example, should allow people to opt out and hide their status. This is also the case for opting in/out for search already. Why not for the online status? All others would be unaffected and have the ability to continue to interact or deliver service bound to the online status of an avatar.

One of the first things I learned when interacting on the internet: If you do not want to leave footprints, if you do not want your content to be seen by others, if you do not want to be tracked: Stay off the internet!

As I said before: It can be useful to "hide": for example if we work on complex scripts and get IMed all the time ... but hey, our customers deserve our attention and support - so we have to live with fact that they can see if I am online and IM me. It's a part of the service many content creators offer. We can not and will not hide behind an anonymous support system and sit in a hidden, dark corner and create things.

Fact is: removing this functionality without thought and also limiting the viewers via the new TPV is the wrong way to go:

• it will break a bunch of useful content
• it will remove good and useful services many merchants and service oriented businesses offer
• it will make Second Life again a bit poorer in regards to interactivity
• it will serve a few paranopid people only but limit the user experience of many others

Please, LindenLab, think twice before you go this way. Read the many useful suggestions/idea experienced residents made and don't castrate Second Life more than you already did (remember user ratings?)

My 2 Cents, Cobra

 

[BlckCobra Shikami 21]

TY Kelly for the info and clarification. But code complexity should not be an argument for choosing a solution which breaks content and removes functionality. I understand the request for more privacy in Second Life, but affecting the user experience by removing such an important functionality for all others does not really make sense.

What will be next? llSensor? llGetObjectDetails? This way it will be made sure scripts can not even detect people in the sim ...

Why  not remove scripting completely? No more script griefers, reduced code complexity, better sim performance, ...

This would be absurd and reduce Second Life to an animated chat. Scripting, building and user interaction are a part of what makes Second Life so special and fascinating. Code complexity can not be the argument to choose a poor solution. Users and LindenLab should work together to find a solution which serves all requirements, which respects the wish for privacy on one hand and enables those who want to to interact with other users and objects as before on the other hand.

My 2 Cents, Cobra

[Agent Silverfall 0]

Just to say,

another point why to detect the online status must be kept in function is for the reason, that this is the only possibility to discover "hidden groups" playing with a dozen avas each member for several reasons.

We have the most important secret services in SL, we have universities who are doing psychological studies on us and after all, we also have groups and single persons, that like to confuse others.

To disvover if an alt is behaving in a way that is typically for non-main-used-avas or to get a better supervision about the possibility if other alts are used by the same user, you need to observe the online behaviour for weeks and months to be sure.

And yes, there is a very smal group of users in SL who are fighting back against those groups, that you can consider as part of the NWO. If we loose this feature, we have no more possibility to discover the names of alts typically used as a spy. We have no more chance to discover and learn about their methods.

So, I see the "cui bono" of disabling the detection of online status for all professionel groups like NSA, CIA, Mossad, FSB, MI6, etc. and universities.

I know, this sounds like strange stuff, weird, but this is reality, RL in SL.

 

[Verena Vuckovic 3]

Never mind the new world order...........a person would simply have no way of knowing if their SL partner ( who can simply switch the show online status flag off.....even though on friends list ) is online right now with someone else. Or any similar such situation.

So one has a charter for people to lie all they want.....all under the guise of 'privacy'.  That is effectively all the so-called 'right to privacy' actually is and has ever been.........the right to lie to people.

It looks like we will now be denied the ability to find out if people are lying. Well done Linden Lab.....yet another step towards the perfect online society !

 

 

 

 

[Jordann Braveheart 0]

"I use the online tracker hud myself and have now for a couple years due to the fact that I to have friends from all over the world and major different time zones and it makes it so much easier that when there on line and I am offline , That it goes to my email and lets me know that they are online, so I can log in to talk and hang out with them"

 

I agree wholeheartedly with the poster who wrote the above. I can't hang out in SL all say, waiting for people I know to come online, people I may really wish to catch up with and hang around with.  So I rely on the online HUD to send me an email to let me know my friends have logged on.  Plus, I DO also have alts, and those friends my not be on my alt's friend's list, so I again rely on the HUD.

I purchased these HUDs for more than one of my avatars.  Will I get a refund from the maker if LL decides to break this product?  Will I get a refund from LL?   Or will I just be out of luck because ONCE AGAIN, LL doesn't understand their users? 

If someone is that upset about someone knowing they are online, they should be using the mute and AR function, not ruin a legitimately useful tool for a majority of other users. 

 

 

[Darkie Minotaur 162]

I'm not going to comment on the topic here - most of all since this discussion doesn't realy belong here. But Verena's message is hilarious: "That is effectively all the so-called 'right to privacy' actually is and has ever been.........the right to lie to people." Wow. Privacy is nothing but the right to lie - and to lie is bad, I suppose. Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt will love to hear that. Down with privacy!

[Tali Rosca 0]

Wait, what!? You're arguing that being able to stalk your partner with a secret alt is an important use case??

[Verena Vuckovic 3]

I stand by my comment. What is the point of going on a social network.....and pretending you are not on it ? Especially when people on any public sim.....including 'friends' for whom one has unchecked the online status flag, can see that you are on it. And especially when anyone in the same groups ( which might include a stalker ) can see you are online.

This is not, as some like to pretend, the equivalent of putting the phone on answerphone and pretending you are not in. This is the equivalent of pretending you are not on planet Earth !

Whilst I've heard many film stars, etc, complain that people have invaded their privacy by phoning, climbing the security wall, photographing, etc............I can't recall anyone complaining that the fact that they were even in the country was a 'violation of privacy'.

SL is a 'world'. In the real world you can hide your location, ability to comunicate, and so on....just as in SL. But the one thing you can't do in RL is be in the world and pretend you are not even in it. Unless your name is Lord Lucan and you've murdered the nanny.

 

 

[Agent Silverfall 0]

"Privacy is nothing but the right to lie"... is unfortunatly a wrong conclusion you did, Darkie.

You should understand it in the meaning of ...is also a right (better say: possibility) to lie to people. I agree fully with Verena to that.

And yes, lying is bad. Manipulating is bad. To get paid for keeping up political correctness within discussion threads is bad. Much things are bad.

 

I asure you that the right to know the truth exists all over the universe. We dont have the same situation in SL like in RL concerning privacy. Your RL Privacy is another thing than your SL privacy in the sense of the human rights. The circumstances are not similar.

 

So, if an user is acting with a few different avas in SL to get a ... (whatever)result by doing this to the targeted ava, the targeted ava must have the right to defend this. 

Discover the truth is defence!

 

[Lilmix Pixelmaid 10]

I send 1000s of IMs daily to about 100 consenting avatars that ONLY want to receive them while online. I can understand their choice to only receive them while online as I would hate to imagine their inbox otherwise... The idea of a HUD has occurred to me but who is going to pay for the time to create a new system with the ability to handle this many requests reliably? Inter sim prim to prim communication is not a simple fix due to a lot of dynamic changes. If I was to chose a base station style setup then who is going to provide the 100s of prim space required for each user to Rez their prim? Not every use of this function is for delivery reasons witch is why delaying the breaking of it till after deliveries are more realizable is absolutely useless to me. I may consider an off world database to keep track of avatars OL status.

[Princess Tiaret 0]

To remove this option in sl would be a total nightmare!! 95% of the time this is used by sl business's for legimate reasons and maybe 5% griefers.If anyone is griefing you then you MUTE them simple as that.I cannot see how removing this option is going to do any good at all to the sl business world,it would just cause total chaos for the 95%.