Do Second Life Entrepeneurs Need Busines Licenses?

Artist and music innovator Grace McDunnough makes a compelling case for virtual world business licenses, based in part on several bad in-world business deals she's experienced.  She surely is not alone.  "In Aug 2008 alone," she notes,

[T]here were 10,406 transactions valued at over USD$50 between two (or more) largely anonymous entities just in Second Life. What happens if you hand over a sizable chunk of your virtual currency to an entity and don't receive in return what you thought you were purchasing?

Her tentative suggestion is something like the metaverse equivalent of the Better Business Bureau, a highly-reputed, private North American organization that collects information and consumer complaints on companies who are registered with them. It's voluntary to join, but it's in a business owner's interest to join, because when they do, their company website or bricks-and-mortar storefront gets to display the famous BBB seal-- a way of assuring prospective consumers that they run a reputable business. 

Read the whole thing and offer feedback here; I personally think it's a good idea, if it was established by a reputed non-profit organization already deeply involved in Second Life.  What's your take?

Comments

[FlipperPA Peregrine]

I keep hoping to see someone pull this off, but every attempt so far has failed. Good luck, Grace!

[Ann Otoole]

Such efforts don't have any effect in real life either. They are good-old-boy networks just as have been the attempts in Secondlife.

The reason for a business license is related to taxation and some statistics and has nothing to do with anything except taxation. SL income is already taxable as personal income or as business income if you choose to incorporate or DBA.

Now if you can come up with a web test to positively ID people with unethical behavior traits then hey you could try selling it to the Lab. But then why would the Lab want that at all? Look at some of the top businesses in Secondlife and try to characterize "trust formation" (the only way to describe price setting arrangements, "filtering" people that they don't like out of the main SL related press, etc), traffic falsification, and profile pick payola as ethical behavior.

The issues run deep and to solve them would eliminate a rather large portion of the Lab's revenue stream so I don't foresee any changes happening at all. Any organization that attempts to publish negative information in a business is subject to Libel litigation and I don't see any people of reasonable intellect willing to risk their real life finances for a noble effort that doesn't even work in real life. If there were ethics in real life then we would not have to constantly hear that used car financing bait line that says "All credit applications will be accepted". (Intentionally misleading statement intended to fool some people into thinking all credit apps will be approved. I.e.; intentionally misleading = unethical behavior)

But hey soon you can pay the lab $500 USD to be vetted as a "Gold Solution Provider". So soon we will see even more unethical behavior in the form of "Gold Solution Providers" finding ways to suggest anyone that is not "Gold" is a rip off and/or criminal.

[Tristin Mikazuki]

Its all about the con in SL.. and this is just one more con lol

[Daman Tenk]

Personally I think business licenses would be a great thing.

Not saying everyone who makes some t shirts and puts them for sale should get a license; but if you deal with large contracts for building entire corporate sims, or deal with millions of lindens in some other way, there should be some checks and balances.

I know DutchX, even though they're only active in Second Life, is a company registered with the chamber of commerce in real life. It's the main reason I trust buying Lindens from them.

[dandellion Kimban]

Actually there was some talking about Linden's approved creator certificates. What happened to that?
Anyway, I don't see it wise to have Lindens organizing any kind of licenses. Centralizing those things would turn out as a very bad thing in a very short time.

[Dedric Mauriac]

There has already been a second life business bureau for a few years now. It's not backed by Linden Lab, but people can file complaints against participating businesses. They had renamed the group and also have Business Bureau Isle.