Irreverent Emoto

Linden Labs doesn't even listen to its own CEO. What chance you will listen to customers? This is an extract from an interview with Rod Humble, CEO, published a couple of days ago. “Privacy is extremely important for anyone putting themselves out there, expressing themselves, or expressing a side of themselves through an avatar. People don’t want other people to connect the dots from their avatar to their real life person – or even, for that matter, to an alt. One of the ethical obligations we have is to protect people’s privacy “People come to Second Life because they want a story, they want to be in a story….and we have an ethical obligation to protect that. “I’m not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I’m optimistic that we’ll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy.” Thus speaks Rod Humble....... You can read the rest of the interview here: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/more-from-rod-humble/ What Rod says runs totally counter to what Linden Labs has done with Viewer 2.5 with Web Profiles, links to Facebook and other social networking sites, the requrement to enable cookies and javascript in-world to view pofiles and use search. And this has been done against the wishes of the vast majority of SL customers expressing opinions in the blogs and forums. Who is in control? Or dare I say it; is this TOTAL HYPOCRACY?

All is not lost IF we can believe this: More from Rod Humble (Linden Labs new CEO) “Privacy is extremely important for anyone putting themselves out there, expressing themselves, or expressing a side of themselves through an avatar. People don’t want other people to connect the dots from their avatar to their real life person – or even, for that matter, to an alt. One of the ethical obligations we have is to protect people’s privacy “People come to Second Life because they want a story, they want to be in a story….and we have an ethical obligation to protect that. “I’m not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I’m optimistic that we’ll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy.” Thus speaks Rod Humble....... You can read the rest of the interview here: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/more-from-rod-humble/

Re: Thanks to everyone who has commented on this post and alerted us to some of the bugs and usability issues that you're having with the web profiles. Our team is aware of them and we are working hard to address them quickly. Can one ask the question why bugs and usability issues, about which you are aware, were not addressed BEFORE releasing 2.5? With respect to usability issues, these should be identified and addressed by the User Experience Design Team BEFORE developers even start writing code. And bugs should be identified and resolved before your Quality Team approve a Beta for production release. As a point of information, who heads up your User Experience and Quality Teams? And how many people are assigned to each?

Re: I still need a privacy setting that hides my groups to EVERYBODY, even friends! It has always been possible to hide any of your groups from showing in your profile - go to the infor panel for each group.

Seems like Viewer 2.5 Web Profiles is riddled with errors and problems. Just came online to post what you have just pointed out - unchecking" I want my profile to be viewed on the Web" makes the profile not viewable in world using Viewer 2.5. Also, disabling cookies and Javascripts means you cannot view ANY profiles in-world. Seems like Mac users with Safari cannot even uncheck "I want my profile to be viewer on the Web"! In the process of checking the above, I noticed that despite my preference settings stipulating that I want to download and instal updates MANUALLY, SL attempts to instal Viewer 2.5 automatically the second time one opens Viewer 2.4. No wonder several people have been caught by surprise and found themselves in Viewer 2.5 without realizing it!!!! If the people of Egypt could get rid of Murbarak, we the users of SL can rise up and force Linden Labs to roll-back Viewer 2.5 to the prior version. ENOUGH IT ENOUGH! Avis of Second Life uniite. Let the chant begin.... ....OUT WITH VIEWER 2.5 - IN WITH A COMPLETE OVERHALL OF THE VIEWER UI. ....GIVE ALL AVIS THEIR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS - A SECOND LIFE EXPERIENCE WE CAN ONCE AGAIN ENJOY UNSHACKLED FROM ALL THE USELESS GARBAGE THAT LL IS ATTEMPTING TO FOIST UPON US!

The 2.5 web profiles are NOT searchable on the web - you have to enter the url http://my.secondlfe.com/firstname.secondname to access them. Secondly, avi profiles have always been searchable on the Web - just enter the avi's name in the search box on any SL web page. So please explain how 2.5 Web Profiles are a huge plus. Removal from the upopular sidebar makes the sidebar an even bigger liability. Opening up a browser window in world to view profiles further clutters the screen and tends to be slow. Unfortunately, Linden Labs seems totally clueless about UI (User Interface) Design and makes mistake after mistake after mistake. Such a shame.

Web-viewable profiles is not a new 2.5 innovation. The ability to view SL profiles on the Web (albeit in a slightly abbreviated form) has been around for ages. This included the ability to share profiles on Facebook, Twitter and in numerous other ways. The primary difference is that the existing Web profiles are accessible via SL's web search or, directly, using the avi's UUID, e.g. http://world.secondlife.com/resident/8f014fb1-a47b-4cec-be9e-064268cc9b1a . One wonder's why LL is reinventing the wheel. One also wonders whether the privacy settings that were announced above will also apply to the existing Web-based profiles.

I have no wish to expose my SL Profile to the world via the Web. This is a gross infringement of my privacy rights. I am wondering also whether this action may be a breach of privacy legislation in many countries, especially those in Europe. Many of us play in SL as a refuge from the real world. We have relationships here and indulge in activities that we wish to remain in world. How many people, for example, who participate in BDSM wish their employers or prospective employers to potentially view profiles that include reference to such activities. With the linking by anybody to other social media sites, there is a grave risk that SL Avis are linked to our real life persona. Think again Linden Labs, before you potentially wreak havoc on the private lives of your customers and potentially attract major legal challenges to your ill-thought out moves.