Linden Lab Hit By Wrongful Termination Lawsuit Alleging Discrimination & Retaliation for Raising Concerns About Its New Payment Service, Tilia

Kavya Pearlman, an award-winning cybersecurity expert, just went public about a wrongful termination lawsuit she filed yesterday against Linden Lab, where she worked last year. A Muslim-American woman of color, Ms. Pearlman alleges the company discriminated against her, and retaliated against her after she raised security concerns related to Tilia, the company's new payment service which all Second Life users are required to register with by tomorrow.

Ms. Pearlman shared the full text of her legal complaint with me, and it contains a number of highly serious allegations. For instance this passage, summarizing the red flags related to Tilia that she claims she brought up with senior staff: 

In the last year of her employment with Linden Lab serving as the Director of Information Security, Kavya Pearlman raised concerns on multiple occasions to her supervisors, top company executives regarding security risks and possible violations of important laws she observed in Linden’s Second Life and Tilia currency program which prohibit money laundering, child pornography, pedophilia, compromise financial and data security, and other related laws.

She goes on to allege that the company did not respond to these issues, but went ahead with Tilia's launch as scheduled:

Instead of looking into Pearlman’s complaints, Linden Lab’s senior officers led a campaign of retaliation against her, painting her as an inept employee who has issues with communication, and ultimately terminating her employment in March of 2019. Linden Lab proceeded with the timely launch of Tilia’s online token currency, and its expansion of the Second Life virtual reality platforms without taking seriously the risks identified in the realm of compliance and security that Pearlman had identified.

I have of course reached to Linden Lab about this lawsuit, and will update this post if they make a public reply. In any case, Ms. Pearlman has posted a summary of her perspective on Twitter, including a key passage which directly connects her allegations to current events.  Link to the start of her tweet thread below: 

1/12 Today I take a stand against @LindenLab - yet another SiliconValley company that is more interested in status quo and not listening to the voice of #security #privacy and #ethics - simply cz its the voice of a #woman. I filed a retaliation lawsuit against #LindenLab pic.twitter.com/Z1Sk9kXhTT

— Kavya Pearlman (@KavyaPearlman) July 31, 2019

2/12 Today it’s time to break the silence with my fight for justice. I joined Linden Lab in July 2017 to develop #infosec strategies, advising on State and international #infosec regulations, managing #InformationSecurity systems to prevent #databreach and enable #compliance pic.twitter.com/RnZpSadnTl

— Kavya Pearlman (@KavyaPearlman) July 31, 2019

Obviously this is a highly explosive lawsuit, so I'm going to refrain from making any hasty judgements about it -- and highly recommend to readers that they do the same.

Comments

[BoJack Norseman]

Linden's General Counsel has to be on the hook for this, right? Why wouldn't you just settle this and do better next time? They are going to need another town hall!

[Connie L. Wells]

I'm concerned with using the new payment method of Tilia. I don't feel comfortable in giving out my Social Security and personal information. Only for some hackers getting my personal information. I love playing this game and have been for over 10 years. I'm not sure I will return to the game?

[MICHAEL]

You only have to give your social security number if you're taking money out not if you're just buying linden

[Dath]

Yea it only affects ppl who have usd on their account, if all you do is by Linden straight from you card or PayPal it wont ask you to do anything from what I read on the posts about it. I don't have the links sorry

[amandamagick]

Going to have to see how this plays out. I am following to see what other information comes out from LL.

[PaniniPaperdoll]

No comment about the veracity of the lawsuit, but am I the only one bothers that a lawsuit has social media images and all those hashtags? It feels odd.

[Pulsar]

You had to to give your info before too, when you cashed out above a certain limit, but from now you have to do so anyway with Tilia, the first time you do. Of course they take your money the very second you click a button, while you will continue to wait for days every time you cash out.
The fun thing is how they ask for that (or asked, if they changed it).
Not a common "we are sorry for the inconvenience, but we need this and that in order to proceed" - after all, landlords and merchants, with their commercial activities, directly or indirectly, are the main reason LL is still around.
Nope.
A subtly threatening mail from Linden Lab, signed by nobody, tells that if you don't cooperate, your account will be suspended; they give you a certain number days to show your SSN, photo ID, with name, address etc, to... (guess what) an anonymous Linden Lab employee, who replies to you under a Linden screen name.

Now I don't know about this case, but a lawsuit concerning "security risks and possible violations of important laws", "compromise financial and data security"... Well, I hope for everyone that everything will be cared in the best way.

[Menion Azalee]

Yeah no..Sorry they say that they only need it if you are taking money out...ummmm yeah no! They say it is safe from hackers but there is no such thing!

[Tankgirl]

Very brave of her. I wish I could openly support her. She fights for all of us.

[Iso]

LL is the Jeff Epstein of the VR world and the paying clients are their children. )

[Medhue]

Well, because I can speak freely, I will. Tilia, and or parts of it, have been in effect for a very long time. I've been cashing out for almost 15 years. Ms. Pearlman was commonly known as Maya Sansar, in Sansar. Let's just say many users complained about her. My bet is that she doesn't have a leg to stand on and is just using the Tilia stuff as fuel.

[Sam]

Yes let's all shoot the Messenger now facing off against a rich, benign, honest, non-greedy company, like LL, which has a history of concern for people.

Smh

[Clara Seller]

Hmm, something about all of this leaves me uncomfortable. It seems very heavy on the optics and short on the substance. #trigger #convienient. I certainly have my complaints against LL and the tech industry, but I don't expect them to pay me for it. I would agree they are Capitalists, but the implication that they all of the other "ists", is not so easy to see. It looks like two fights and I'm not convinced they are related. We'll see.

[Jessica]

I'm a little nervous about other privacy concerns including Tilia and I've voiced my concerns and asked some questions. It would be disappointing to me if my IP address can be seen by anyone other than Linden staff. As a woman, it's a concern.

In general, Second Life needs to work on being a more inclusive environment in world as well. It's over sexualized. It would be great to see younger people there again, universities and charitable organizations. Sexuality has it's place but I don't think it should be in your face all the time.

It makes me wonder how much staff is female? Perhaps if there were more women behind the scenes it would be a friendlier and more inclusive place for a larger segment of the population.

I love the fact that you can create here. That's the biggest attraction for me and it's why I continue to come to Second Life. I really think it needs to work on some things though.

[Phillip Beeswing]

WTF! Why am I just hearing about this today? I've been playing this game for over 10 years, and this is the first I've heard about it.

[Galathir Darkstone]

Tilia is not new. They've been part of the process for more than a year now. They were just considered in-house/internal before. The changes in rules for those cashing out... having to supply RL information... are worthy of a different discussion, so I'm not going to get into that (I don't think it should be harder to cash out now than it was before, while it is, apparently, for some people... and that IS an issue). But I'm not sure what she could have brought to their attention that would have been a security issue that exists now, but did not before the "launch" of Tilia (which is really just a legal shift in the relationship between legal names... not, as near as I can tell... an actual change in what is done with the data). If LL is in the wrong? I hope they have to sort it out. But for now, I'll wait and see what's really going on here. This could, just as easily, be her lashing out because she's in the wrong. I hope the guilty/responsible party gets what's coming to them. I do not, however, believe there is significantly more security risk for my data now than there was a year ago.

As for those unaware... odds are good it does not affect you. Tilia only comes into play if you are cashing out RL currency from your SecondLife account balance.

[TheLindensLaughAtUs]

Linden Lab has done absolutely nothing to protect users from copy bot for over a decade. Rather than investing in a way of encrypting media to prevent data mining, LL has just said don't use media.. SL is not a safe platform nor has it been for a long time. I've been on sl for 12 years. This is the last straw. A company that has done ZERO to protect the people that use and develop their platform are definitely not getting more. Let's be honest, in 2019 the quality of SL is a joke to other games. Sansar is equally messed up. I've had extremely successful businesses in SL and will be bringing my skills and money elsewhere.

[Fionalein]

@Medhue "many users complained about her" ... er yes ... "many users" and Sansar ... LOL ...

[Wagner James Au]

I have no judgements on this particular case, but in general, cybersecurity experts tend to rub a platform's user base the wrong way, because they're so sticklish about... cybersecurity.

[Medhue]

@Wagner - She didn't rub users and creators the wrong way over security issues. She thought she could tell users and creators what to do, or even whether they could be on the grid at all. She outed non binary people, and I personally got to watch internal companies videos, likely because she wanted me to do some work for her. She was a mess really, and a nightmare to deal with. If the Lab does something wrong, I'll be the first to criticize them. Maya Sansar tho, her head was a bit too big for the building.

[Deasel]

Connie L. Wells before January 2011, Linden Lab required your social security, passport, driving license or care insurance health (in some countries) to prove a user's age. That was until the Teen Grid shut down.

[jell]

Leave it up to LL to send their stooges in here to besmirch a strong woman in the workplace.

LL is an all white frat and they like it that way.

Go sit down, lil lady. Let the men handle this.

[Animeislame]

Love all these delusional comments about who's in the wrong. I take it these are delusional Second Life players who pretend to know about law or pretend to be "IRL Lawyers" lol. Sad sad people.

[Susan Wilson]

I would like to hear about what security and legality concerns she had about Tillia. I find it hard to believe that the Lab would just dismiss them if they were credible.

[vwfan]

I see both are at fault here. She didn't need to overstep herself into this sort of discrimination view or whatever it is. She should've stuck to what she did best without over personalizing it, document every bit of it and that's it.

She was hired as a cybersecurity expert. I think the Lab got more than they bargained for and probably expected to get off easy without spending more money or whatever. She documents various issues that the Lab turned their back to. She even documents a few other Lab employees who have brought up similar issues before.

The fact of the matter is, differences aside, why did the Lab not listen? Why didn't they proactively work with her on the actual issues? Was there any real clear and concise explanation from the Lab as to why they chose to not work with her and other Lab staff findings? Did the Lab document everything they have done in response to these type of issues and where is that available to see? Or did they just get video recordings just to smear her back?

We'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

[bastet]

Did you read the court documents she posted? Everyone who handles credit card data should comply with PCI, why does Linden Lab think they are above that?

Also, interesting, the sexual age-play was brought into this suit as well.

I think her concerns are spot on and Linden Lab doesn't care about them until the feds come knocking.

[Wagner James Au]

> Did you read the court documents she posted?

Yes, that's where I got the two paragraphs I cited above.

[WvuAlphaSoldier]

Don’t care how you skin it; the laws are the laws. it baffles my mind that some people are attacking her for brining to attention that security privacy and payment related laws that should not have been ignored
1 PCI compliance :want to argue how securing payment data is not important
2. Fincen regulation : want to argue how not knowing where money is coming from ( terrorist or sex trafficking) is not important
3. GDPR: European laws are much stricter and this concerns not just Feds but Europol ;pretty soon All EU authorities will be looking into what’s up with pedo n ageplay stuff if they are not already
4. Our data in staff’s private gmail account ( something called Moles.. anyone knows what’s that?) - how the fuck can LL ignore that and how is that not a problem

If it was not the lawsuit but worse : like a data breach would be better? All the Muslim stuff seems to cause distraction .. there are laws that were ignored and I m sure the payment folks mentioned PayPal, Adyen, Skrill along with whoever their bank is; going to look deep into this mess, not to mention all the state license LL is bragging about using Tilia; as a state auditor, this is all a person needs to know to investigate illegalities/licenses. Forget about what the outcome; does anyone care about their own data ??????????

[Animeislame]

You losers are still commenting erping as lawyers? LMAO

[Better then Pie]

@Medhue your well known and respected by many, also your creating day to day in both platforms so I believe you.
Your not the lone supporter of the lab on what looks like to me a hit piece, several of us pointed out how the lab in our opinions was likely not guilty, all our posts were deleted, i believe in my own speculation for not fitting the narrative.

I will state again, I do not believe this "person" while knowing for a fact as an ex-linden lab employee myself, the lab is far from raciest while being one of the most tolerant AND accepting group of individuals around.

Ebbe is too nice to everyone, a very honest person, some may see that as a weakness?

[Sure..]

I don't believe "Better then Pie" is a Linden lab employee. Your spelling and grammar is atrocious.

[Stan]

@Sure..
Why would you make fun of a former linden who suffers from Paraplegia? Sic

[Eugene]

.

Pies a good example of LL fulfilling a mission of diversity' being she is a physically challenged person of color
LL even installed the 2nd outside wheelchair ramp just for her
any raciest,bigots or xenophobes would have never responded to her resume let alone accommodated her needs

- Former Phoenix Viewer Developer

.

[Amber]

Jessica makes great points!
We need to get rid off all the privileged strait white males running SL! both on the outside and inside of the game!

we need verified genders not tilia!. lets show them how strong we really are!

RAWR!

[Fionalein]

Congrats ExLab-employees, Lab-affiliates and hidden Lab friends... Do you actually want to torpedo your own boat? Your actions here might be enough to convince a jury that Mrs. Pearlman was right about discrimination ...

It obviously didn't even stop when she quit.

Shouldn't you folks be a little bit smarter about this?

[Rose Blackwood]

Linden labs doesn't create the world, we do. So yeah sl is sexual but that's because we had made it that way but not the whole grid is like that. About 80% or so is bdsm amd gor related and yes age play falls under bdsm (but a lot of the age play done inworld is illegal. Child avi's having sex with adult avi's is just wrong).

Before Tilia, to cash out i had to give my social and valid id to cash out. Really any site that handles cash being given to you ask for this information as legally they have to.

Some of it, has a point but it also doesn't make sense with the lawsuit itself but eh. Secondlife has always ignored some of those components, i have even reported some violations and they're still around. Pedophile sims are all around the grid but hidden on private islands and from the search. There are many issues with secondlife and yeah, the security could be better as as it stands now, you don't get locked out of your account after x amount if failed login attempts. I will be very interested to see what happens and what the Lab says about the lawsuit (if anything).

[Liz]

Ok, I see the concerns everyone here has and their opinions. I do agree with her about how certain things are being dismissed, mine was. My ex tried to get a child avi naked with him and have sex with him. I reported his ass right away yet nothing was done. He was still getting online. Still doing whatever the hell he wanted. the only reason he is offline now is because he went blind.
Linden Labs needs to do something about this stuff and not ignore and blow you off on it. The girl he tried to do it was afraid to speak out. and that is part of the reason he is still able to log in. Even if he is blind he is able to have access to it. Which is not fair and sick and just.... Ugh I'm getting very angry now so I will shush before I do or say something I regret.

[jonah]

Leave it to LL to trot out some ¨blind, crippled person of color¨ as evidence of not being racist (beats me why they prefer raciest??)

Yeah, Stevie Wonder is my best friend so I ain´t raciest.

Hopefully this lawsuit will expose the entire sad, clown house that is LL.

[Divided We Stand]

Linden Lab needs to find a way to replace employees with AI, this could be something that maybe Philip Rosedale could figure out, certainly at some point AI could code a VR world better.

Linden Lab please start outsourcing more, hiring more temps at lower wages, bring in more contract employees, plan on closing your physical offices with everything being remote work. the talented people you have to keep for now will love working at home anyways,while working on a goal to use AI and other new methods to reduce cost and exposure of hiring human beings.

I think it's time Linden Lab got a better CEO , M.Linden 2.0 PLEASE!

linden lab please move your headquarters to a country that still has common sense, decency, while being tax and business friendly.

I for one will smile the day i hear that chinese or russian boots are on the ground here in america!.. LOL

[Lili]

"I am gonna show you how strong I am"... this is what it is all about... #BS #horsecrap #leftistshowoff #conspiracytheories... #yadayada *yawn*

[GamerExpert]

Well doesent really matter because according to Mr Ebbe it will all remain the same so we screwed anyways ! XD https://twitter.com/GamerXGinc/status/1149488408093290497?s=20

[sirhc desantis]

smells to coffee

yep this fart remembers and woah actually uses actual SL sign in. Cowards all smiley wink.

(apologies to Fionalein.Resident haha)

[AnimeisLame]

You Second Life freaks are as delusional as each-other pretending and role-playing as Linden Labs staff and Lawyers you all need some serious help if this is what your life has lead to go feed your kids or look after them instead of obsessing over a game.

[Fionalein]

@AnimeisLame bored much?

[Trevor Capp]

I hope she wins big

[MAP Community Director]

@ Trevor Capp - Finally! someone, willing to give the lab a taste of their own medicine. they have no issues destroying innocent open minded community's.

She has my support online anytime as well.

[Mental Health Hotline]

If this little show ends up in court, LL can safely replace their lawyer with a box of popcorn. Medhue absolutely nailed it.

[Guty]

Mental Health Hotline? Yes, please call yourself.

[Medhue]

It's interesting to see so many wishing for this all to be true. It just is not. I generally do not get chummy with Lindens, despite working with many at the creator meetings and such. I like that I can speak freely about the Lab. I have no intentions at all of working there. From what I do know tho, It's a very warm inviting place, with more diversity than most companies will ever have. Some might even say it is too inviting, meaning that less work gets done because of how open everything is. I can't say for certain exactly why the canned Maya Sansar, but I can say that her issues with the Sansar community were vast, and started the day she got there. She very let her position get to her head, literally ordering users around. There was a major incident too, just before she was fired. Many creators came to me hearing Maya was working to ban them, from all of Sansar. Needless to say, she is gone now. Who knows, maybe the Lab really are all those ban this, or Maya is just full of it.

[Trudy]

@Medhoe Clearly Maya would be exposed for what she is when you offer to be a witness for the defense. Please let us know when you have contacted the LL attorneys so that Maya's lies can be proven under oath.

Well, we're waiting...

[Michael]

I am really tired of LLs and their hypocritical Second Life garbage. I have been in SL for about 12 yrs, seeing LLs screw up one thing after another, writing the TOS so they can do anything to you they want, and many things mentioned in this Lawsuit. They want poofy little gummie people who are wimps and dont stand up to them. The sexual deviants are still running rampant there, and anything that LLs deems as interfering with their money flow will most likely be banned. I am wondering if the next 'law' they will make involves having to place poop on the streets in every sim, not unlike San Francisco.

[Simple Lemon]

"retaliation against a person who is a minority, a woman, a Muslim woman and an immigrant"

Since none of us were there at LL to see or hear any of this, and we are hearing only one side of this, perhaps we should all remember that California is an employment "at-will" state where the state law says you can be fired from employment just because "we don't like you anymore" which may have nothing to do with

"a person who is a minority, a woman, a Muslim woman and an immigrant"

[Noveen Benoir]

Okay if she has a problem with them that's fine you know hey like why does she have to go on social media saying stuff like oh they wanted to silence me because I'm a woman second life is never been like that and never will be like that and yes they did have bands on all kinds of things gambling they took out and they try to break up pedophilia whenever they see it. Now if you have a lawsuit and you're trying to you know fight wrongful persecution that's fine but why do you got to throw things in like you know though they tried to silence me cuz I'm a woman know I heard they tried to silence her because the first day on the job she was treating the people underneath her like crap. I'm not even going to get into all of the other stuff because once again that's he-said-she-said stuff and I don't like to do that however it doesn't feel like she's worried that she got fired it seems like she's trying to do it like you can't fire me I'm going to go on social media and make a whole thing about how that you are Prejudiced and you fired me because you don't like hearing from women that's bull crap.

[Nop]

The thing is, all of the employees of Sansar tell users and creators what to do, how they should act - and if dissension or disagreement occurs, they are quickly dealt with, either through bans or otherwise.
Sansar staff make up the rules as they go along. They are also fiercely leftist and LGBTQ/SJW -centric and all their decisions reflect that.

The problem is, if any of the staff disagrees with the rest, they are quickly 'removed' from their job, or they are forced to leave. Then a campaign against them starts, from projecting to outright lying about how toxic they were to the company or Sansar.

Meanwhile the current staff continue to disrespect and prey on users and creators alike, creating an atmosphere of utter fear that what you might say might offend another user, or the worst, a staff member, and get you banned permanently.

[David M Walton]

This is just the tip of the iceburg. Linden labs does NOT know how to run a business. END OF FUCKING STORY!

LL doesnt listen to their residents. They dont have any infrastructure to aid in the development of second life. Like places to learn scripting, 3D modeling, or supporting their sim owners..

They allow monopolies to overun smaller residents. They ban innocent people all the time. Has anyone seen the sheer number of complaints all over the net and their BBB rating is C+ and they are not registered with the BBB.

The managment isnt going to change. Second life will eventually fail because of Philip Rosedale.

And THATS the rest of the story!

[Kouki]

I was a creator in SL, and I can 100% confirm that SL does not care that pedophiles that plague their virtual world. Not only that, but also that real life children and preteens play where they can enter adult sims and form relationships with and get manipulated and sexually exploited by adults.

I was once at a hentai roleplay sim with some friends, and in the chat there was a boy (using a female avatar) who admitted he was 14 years old in real life, saying things like he didn't even know how to use condoms, that girls pee out of their vagina (we don't) and that he wanted to grow up to be a sex slave irl... He was never banned, not even scolded or lectured (I was the only one who attempt to lecture him), and instead the sim/group owners kept him and had sex with him anyway, as he was a regular.

After seeing this, as well as MANY other cases of child exploitation/sexualization, no matter if you report it or not, nothing happens to the criminals, I could not take it anymore, and I quit SL. I was abused as a child, and molested, so I would not stand for it when this becomes fetishized especially in public online spaces within a real world company's jurisdiction. It was especially disgusting because I lived in San Francisco at the same, the same city that LL is in... The same city that child porn/exploitation is ILLEGAL in. A city that costs butt loads of riches to afford rent in (you know that LL is making bank if they can afford to be in San Francisco of all places).

Nowadays, EVERY anime sim has child porn all over it.

Even with non-anime sims there are some sims dedicated to sexualizing and ageplay with more realistic young teen, preteen, children, and even toddler avatars.

I also saw in the SL search, there was an advertisement for a group whose public group profile image was a freaking child who could not be older than 5 (still had baby-fat!) spreading their legs and showing genitalia in a doggy position. I reported this to LL. Twice. And it NEVER came down, the group still functions. It is a group of adult men wearing slutty-dressed child girl avatars, some implanting big boobs to pretend they are adult avatars (when it is very obviously a child with breasts implanted on the child chest).
I even talked to the group owners personally, and they played innocent by claiming they changed it, claiming it was just adults, but it was not changed at all (or they changed it back).

I am very very familiar with anime, being Japanese myself and watching many different anime with all kind of art styles... I can easily tell when it is an adult character or "high school girl who looks young", versus straight-up anime child (1000 years or not, is still a child's body). This was with young children, very clearly made for pedophile's masturbation. Someone can claim they are not pedophile if they only like anime kids, but they are still pedophile. The same people will be disgusted at gay anime men because they are not gay, yet they will masturbate to anime girl children, and this is because they are PEDOPHILES, sexually attracted to little kids, whether they deny it or not, and they are actively spreading and normalizing the child porn and exploiting children in public instead of SEEKING HELP.

[Kouki]

PS: Also, I had been in SL since 2007. It has devolved so badly over the years.