FIRST, AN APOLOGY: My work life and my personal life have both been rather hectic, even chaotic, lately, and I have not had much time to blog. Often I come home from work, and I just lie on the sofa, absolutely exhausted. (Sometimes I escape into my beloved Second Life for an hour or two, as a welcome refuge from the sometimes-overwhelming changes taking place in my real life.)
Among the many changes that have taken place, the entire science library where I work (collections and staff) has been moved to another library at my university. I still haven’t even fully unpacked all the moving boxes in my new office space!
And I am once again suffering from a pinched nerve in my neck, which at its worst leads to numbness and tingling running all along my right arm and hand, which obviously limits the amount of time I can spend at the keyboard. I am currently visiting a physiotherapist twice a week to get that fixed!
Thank you for your patience while I navigate yet another set of changes and challenges in my life. I will be back when I can.
Believe it or not, most SL businesses have been operating against the TOS, and unfortunately, there is no current way for SL to resolve this issue. Additionally, the risk of losing years of work overnight without warning is very real. We recently faced this threat ourselves and can attest to its seriousness. Please join us in changing this and help our community ensure a more secure and compliant future.
—Jaimy Hancroft, owner of Death Row Designs
Last Thursday, Jaimy Hancroft, the owner and operator of the Second Life home and garden decor store Death Row Designs, received a very unpleasant surprise:
I am writing to bring up a severe issue that has recently affected my business, Deathrowdesigns (DRD), which has been running since 2008 in Second Life… Just recently, Second Life finally got around to cracking down on TOS infringement of account sharing and deleted our entire marketplace listing – over 2000 listings down the drain. They kept our account on hold, without any warning or reason. This has put a severe dent in our operations.
Despite pointing out that Section 4.1 of the TOS mentions the possibility of obtaining written permission for sharing an avatar, support has consistently denied us a clear path or process to obtain this consent. We’ve received messages implying that sharing the account in any capacity will result in termination, which feels particularly targeted, especially considering other businesses appear to operate without similar scrutiny.
Although my account is now released to me and me only, I cannot function or do business alone. DRD has well over 10,000 customers and over 3000 items that we manage. Handling all of it single-handedly really just isn’t an option, and manager solutions are just not there.
It’s just not possible for me to operate DRD on my own. I have my actual sister and our amazing CSR, Charlotte Bailey, without whom we wouldn’t have been the success we are today.
Where Jaimy and his sister have gotten into trouble is that they were sharing a single Second Life avatar/account to run their business, which is a situation that is not uncommon among SL stores that grow beyond a certain point, and employ multiple people. Linden Lab has rules against account sharing, but these rules can sometimes make it difficult to operate a money-making business in Second Life. Jaimy is feeling upset and singled out for punishment by LL, and I can’t say that I blame her. It is possible that somebody with an axe to grind (perhaps a disgruntled customer or even a business competitor) reported that she was sharing her account with her sister, simply to get her store into trouble.
She started a discussion thread in the official Second Life community forums, which was closed by Tommy Linden, who stated:
There seems to be some confusion regarding not only the Terms of Service, but also our process for dealing with account sharing.
I am not going to debate the policy itself, or the process for addressing it. However, I would like to point everyone to Section 4.1 https://lindenlab.com/tos and more specifically, call to attention this portion of the Terms of Service.
“You may not sell, transfer or assign your Account or its contractual rights, licenses and obligations, to any third party (including, for the avoidance of doubt, permitting another individual to access your Account) without the prior written consent of Linden Lab. Linden Lab reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to manage and control the number of Accounts that you may establish and maintain.”
Now for the issue of our process for dealing with account sharing. Termination is not the first step taken when it comes to someone found to be sharing their account. We place a temporary hold on the account for the security of the account owner. Once we have been in contact with the account owner, we discuss the above policy to ensure they understand before the account is released.
I understand business owners and content creators have concerns regarding this policy. The original poster has created a feedback post that everyone can participate in here: https://feedback.secondlife.com/feature-requests/p/allow-business-accounts-to-share-access-responsibly. I can not stress enough how this is the best way to get assistance with more tools and options for business owners to be able to better manage their business, without putting the security of their account at risk.
Since we are not going to continue to debate our Terms of Service, or the process for which we enforce it, I am going to close this thread, but I do strongly encourage you to participate in the feedback discussion at the link I provided.
The feedback post on LL’s Canny system, titled Allow Business Accounts to Share Access Responsibly, reads as follows:
As a long-time business owner in Second Life, managing operations efficiently is crucial. Recently, enforcement of the TOS on account sharing led to the deletion of our entire marketplace with over 2000 listings, severely disrupting our business. Death Row Designs (DRD) serves over 10,000 customers and manages more than 3,000 items, making single-person management infeasible. I propose creating a system for obtaining written consent to share business accounts among trusted individuals, specifically for business operations. This would help businesses like ours continue to thrive without compromising account security. Additionally, it would ensure compliance with the TOS while providing a practical solution for businesses that need to share account responsibilities.
This is now the most-upvoted request in Linden lab’s Feature Requests listing, and I would encourage you to read through all the comments, both on the Second Life forums and on Canny, then sign in to Canny using your SL account, and add your vote to this request. Thank you!
You can learn more about Death Row Designs from their website and their very active Discord server, and you should also know that they are having their annual Summer Sale, where you get 50% of your purchase price automatically refunded for almost everything you can buy at their in-world store. The sale runs from June 15th to 30th, 2024.
