Quantcast
You are here: Home / Archives for legal

WSE closed for up to a month – strange or not?

January 5, 2008 By Lowell Cremorne

Over on Your2ndPlace, Nobody Fugazi has done a story on Second Life’s World Stock Exchange (WSE) and its announcement of an up to 30-day closure. I headed over to WSE myself and sure enough was greeted with this:

Auto Greeter: Hello. Lowell Cremorne Welcome to the WSE. As you all know we are upgrading as part of our launch for the WSE 4.0 platform. This is a huge undertaking and we have now entered a phase of development that requires the WSE to close all trading and transactions for “up to” 30 days. As responsible managers and to ensure stability, security and improved services it is important the WSE fix all existing bugs in the website as part of the upgrade. CEO’s will continue normal reporting and announcements during this period. WSE 4.0 includes a new ATM, improved security and functionality along with a new conditional trading system. All WSE Account Holders will earn a bonus 25% p.a. interest during this process. We ask for your patience and apologise for any inconvenience. Kind Regards, LukeConnell Vandeverre

wse2008-1.jpg

I’d agree with Fugazi’s view that such a long closure is strange and it’s hard not to tie it in with Linden Lab’s recent warning on third-party financial transactions. WSE has a history of sudden closures and each time they have re-opened for business. Here’s hoping this time is no different. I’d also put in a wish for version 4.0 of the new WSE platform to incorporate a little more transparency.

Update: The Second Life Herald have further coverage of the closure, including one fascinating statement: “Vandeverre stated that one of the new functions of the WSE 4.0 is the ability for shareholders of the WSE to vote on the board of directors based on individuals he nominates.”. Ever heard of a real-life CEO telling shareholders what directors they can vote for? If the quote is accurate, such a move will do nothing to ease concerns over WSE’s lack of transparency.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Filed Under: Australian News, Business Tagged With: , ,

Legality of virtual stock exchanges – ASIC makes a call

December 7, 2007 By Lowell Cremorne

Massively’s Tateru Nino has written about the legality of virtual stock exchanges, including Second Life’s World Stock Exchange run by Australian Luke Connell.

wseasic.jpg

ASIC is Australia’s financial market watchdog and their view on virtual stock exchanges is that they don’t fall under their purview – but that Fair Trading entities may scrutinise any claims of such markets being touted as only a game. As Tateru states in her piece, “There’s no real difference, of course, in a bank or stock exchange that deals over the Web, over the telephone or in a virtual world”. It’s hard to see the logic in the opposing viewpoint, however it appears that some virtual exchanges have a vested interest in claiming it’s all a game. It’s increasingly appearing that such a claim isn’t even a defence from a legal viewpoint.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Filed Under: Australian News, Business Tagged With: , ,

Australian Federal Police to establish Second Life presence?

December 1, 2007 By Lowell Cremorne

The Australian ran a story last weekend alluding to the Australian Federal Police setting up shop in Second Life. AFP Assistant Commissioner Andrew Colvin is quoted as saying the organisation is “considering” Second Life as a base of operations for its High Tech Crime Centre.

afp1.jpg

I’m taking the whole story with a large grain of salt as it’s written by Natalie O’Brien, who has some serious bad form in reporting on Second Life. If the AFP do establish a presence, it’ll be interesting to see what they offer as a public face in-world.

We’ve contacted the AFP for confirmation of the claims made.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Filed Under: Australian News Tagged With: ,

World Stock Exchange facing legal problems?

November 26, 2007 By Lowell Cremorne

The Second Life Herald are running a story on the Midas Bank saga, alleging that Midas have done some legal investigations around their issues with the World Stock Exchange, run by Australian Luke Connell (LukeConnell Vandeverre).

lukeconnell1107.jpg

If the issues aren’t resolved and things do go legal, it’ll provide a fascinating test-case for the status of finance in virtual worlds and associated governance policies. We’ve stated numerous times that the state of financial regulation in Second Life is farcical and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight at this stage.

I attempted to catch up with Vandeverre in-world this afternoon for comment but his status was set to Away for the 30 minutes or so that I waited around.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Filed Under: Australian News, Business Tagged With: , ,

Landbots and drowned avatars

November 19, 2007 By Lowell Cremorne

The Second Life Herald ran a story today about landbots, those automated entities that cause all sorts of problems with buying and selling land. The SL Herald is alleging that around 20 avatars placed in water sims are part of the landbot scam. Whatever the reason for the submerged avatars, it’s a little strange. Yesterday I noticed that an avatar was showing up in the middle of a water sim:

landbot2.jpg

I teleported to the spot and found this:

landbot.jpg

I returned 24 hours later and found the avatar in the same position and location. Not surprisingly there’s no profile data and the avatars are usually dressed in stock standard orientation clothing. Have you come across one of these drowned avatars? If it turns out they are linked to landbots then hopefully Linden Lab will have a clean-up. It’s hard to imagine what legitimate reason there is for their presence.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: ,

Linden Lab CEO: ‘We’ve got to increase the quality’

August 26, 2007 By Lowell Cremorne

Reuters have published an interview with Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale from this weekend’s SLCC. Most of the interview is fairly predictable but it’s encouraging to see the acknowledgement of quality as the key driver into the future:

“We’re at a place where we’ve demonstrated that the virtual world can exist. Now we need to make it high quality so it does continuously support the activities and desires of the people who are using it. That’s what we’ve learned by listening for the last couple of quarters. We’ve got to increase the quality.”

slcc07.jpg

Of course, I’d deluded myself that some mention may be made of further internationalisation of the servers but the only allusion to that came from Rosedale’s thoughts on open-sourcing:

“If you’re an entrepreneur, wanting to enter the virtual world and sell stuff to people, you’re going to want to find the largest possible audience. So you’ll be strongly drawn to set up your shop on the system with the largest number of people using it. There will be a tremendous desire by people to link those servers together and be on our network so they can have access to the largest base of people.”

Finally, on the legal issues around ageplay and gambling, he summarised Linden Lab’s intent to tie restrictions to avatars through verification of that avatar’s RL location. That seems the most sensible way of not forcing the whole grid into a universal lockdown in a range of sensitive areas.

If Linden Lab are planning some incredible revolutionary step in SL’s development, it’s certainly not apparent in Philip Rosedale’s thoughts. What would you have liked to have seen asked of him in the interview?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Filed Under: General News, Open Source Tagged With: , ,

Blow up the pokies

July 26, 2007 By Lowell Cremorne

Linden Labs have clarified in no uncertain terms their stance on gambling in SL – it’s not to occur, full stop.

casinoremains.jpg

The actual policy is:

“It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life (R) environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:

(1) (a) rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner, OR (b) rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,

AND

(2) provide a payout in

(a) Linden Dollars, OR

(b) any real-world currency or thing of value.

This includes (but is not limited to), for example, Casino Games such as:

o Baccarat
o Blackjack
o Craps
o Faro
o Keno
o Pachinko
o Pai Gow
o Poker
o Roulette
o Sic Bo
o Slot machines

It also includes Sports Books or Sports Betting, including the placing of bets on actual sporting events against a book-maker or through a betting exchange. Linden Lab will actively enforce this policy. If we discover gambling activities that violate the policy, we will remove all related objects from the inworld environment, may suspend or terminate the accounts of residents involved without refund or payment, and may report any relevant details, including user information, to authorities and financial institutions.”

It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for compliance with the policy to be achieved. When I first joined SL in 2006 I was advised to pick up some free $L by using camping chairs. I still had a casino landmark saved from back then and I tried it this evening and took the pictures contained in this story. As you can see, this casino hasn’t done anything to meet the new policy as yet.

Whether you love or hate gambling in SL, the new policy will remove a cultural aspect of the grid. Maybe some will even miss the sight of rows of zombie-like chair campers:

casinoremains2.jpg

Will you miss the casinos in SL?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »