BREAKING: Bonnie Bots Team Meets With Linden Lab, Promises Opt-Out & Masking Features for Second Life Users

Above: Patch Linden (speaking) with some of the Bonnie Bots dev team (photo courtesy Bonnie Belle)

 

Most everyone involved with Second Life has been avidly talking for days about BonnieBots, a new website tracking genuine Second Life activity, with many SLers enthusing over the depth and value of this data, and others alleging rampant privacy intrusions. (Examples in comments here, and also here.)

 

This morning, it was Linden Lab's turn to talk: Patch Linden, VP of Product Operations, summoned Bonnie and her team* into Second Life itself for a fireside meeting.  After a reportedly pleasant chat, Bonnie tells me the site will be making some crucial changes:

 

"We'll be adding an opt-out to the avatar search and the Top Merchants listings," she explained over Discord. "Avatar search will stay disabled until the opt-out is implemented. Top Merchants listing will have merchant names hidden."

 

Personally I think the latter change deserves some debate. To analogize the virtual world with our offline economy, imagine if we had no way of publicly knowing who the wealthiest people and most successful businesses in the US were.

 

At any rate, some of these changes won't happen immediately.

"The opt-out functionality doesn't have a firm ETA," as Bonnie puts it. "May take a weekend or two to implement, since no-one is working full time on BonnieBots." (When I asked last week, she described the project as a non-profit labor of love for Second Life.)

 

As for the Lindens' perspective of Bonnie Bots:

 

"Honestly they were kind and didn't dictate any changes," Bonnie tells me. Everyone just wants to keep the peace."

 

That includes the Bonnie team:

 

"We've all been following the SL Forum discussion obviously. [Linden Lab] feedback to us was nearly identical to their public statement on the SL Forum. We're encouraged that they seem to enjoy the project."

 

And you can enjoy Bonnie Bots here.

 

Update, 9:15pm PT: Just receive this clarification about Bonnie's "team" from her: "Five people on the team. Just a bunch of friends goofing around. We don't have a business entity, don't have any cash flow, and certainly don't make a profit." 

Comments

[Scylla Rhiadra]

An opt-out option is, frankly, inadequate. Vast numbers of SL residents won't even be aware that this site is a thing, and others won't know that they can opt out, unless LL itself directs them to that option through something like an email or a notification and link on log-in. This should be opt-in.

I'm less concerned in some ways about the merchant feed, except that we're not talking about the earnings of impersonal corporations or billionaires. Most of the people appearing here are for all intents and purposes small businesses and independent craftspeople, and what is being made available is not their dividends and offshore holdings, but their not-terribly-spectacular livelihood.

The other really important point is that the data is inaccurate and incomplete, because it seems to be based only on "What Customers Are Buying Now" feed on Marketplace. And it's most unlikely that they are catching all of that, as the data must be coming in more quickly than a refresh can catch it. And, of course, it's not counting in-world sales. At the very least, the feed should make clear its methodology and its limitations -- otherwise it's essentially lying by omission.

I'd also like to know how they are determining the top places in SL. If this is using bots as well (and I assume it must be), are they randomly scouring the grid, or focusing upon certain kinds of Adult-related (and especially BDSM and D/s) areas, as it appears from their list?

I'm all for the gathering of suitably anonymized data, properly and ethically collected. This site is patched together using incomplete data gathered and published without the consent of those affected. To use an analogy I employed on the SL forum yesterday, this is like someone watching how much I am charged every time I go grocery shopping by looking at the register over my shoulder, and then publishing my weekly grocery expenses without my permission. The data is "public" in the sense of being "visible" to someone who is watching, but its aggregation is not, I've not consented to its harvesting, and I've certainly not been asked if I want it being pushed off-grid on a 3rd party site.

[CMK]

I agree with what Scylla said above. Everything about this site should be OPT-IN not OPT-Out. I just can't wrap my head around how anyone can be excited for or PRO Bonniebots.

As far as I'm concerned, the labs need to do much more than what is listed above to contain this situation. I do not want my profile information listed, I do not want my purchases listed, and I certainly do not want my sim information listed.

I own a PRIVATE sim, not a mainland sim and not through a land baron. A PRIVATE SIM. That I pay directly to LL $200+ a month (factoring yearly membership fees) for that word...PRIVATE...therefor I should be able to say I do not want these bots dropping in to collect data about it, myself, my renters, or my customers.

[KillAllBots]

Kill Bonnie Bots with fire

[0xc0ffea]

Opting out on the bonnie bot website will tie your IP address to your SL identity in their database .. which gives this ethically challenged operation yet another valuable data point - so don't do that if that's how they make it work.

It should be opt-in only and you only opt-in by rezzing a prim in SL.

Linden Lab have made a big song and dance for years about how they don't sell our data. The tone and implication of that messaging is that they value our data and are ETHICALLY INVESTED IN PROTECTING it.

"A website you might not know about has all your data, but don't worry, you can opt out, if you .. you know .. figure out it exists at some point." doesn't quite impart the same dedication to privacy and respect for their customers.

[RobertBose1]

I guess I'm going to be the odd guy out and say that I love what Bonnie Bots has done. I've found some interesting, populated places with it that I didn't know existed before and explored some popular attachments to find why so many people were interested in them. Then again, I'm also a guy who wonders what place ban lines and security orbs set against all SL users have in a "social" sphere.

To each their own. Keep on bottin' Bonnie!

[Archer Blep]

Opt out? Rubbish. At the very least it should be an opt in. And automatically banned from land intrusions unless invited.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

@RobertBose1 -- I don't think many people would object to a web site listing interesting places to visit. Many such sites already exist -- for photographers or catering to other interests.

But in some ways the listing of places is the least worrisome and problematic aspect of what this site is doing. AND they need to make their methodology clear: how are they determining which sites are busy and popular? Are their bots visiting random places on the grid? How complete is their coverage? Are they REALLY finding "the most popular places," or are they focused upon particular kinds of regions?

One of the most glaring things missing from BonnieBots is transparency. The site makes claims about their data that can't be tested, and that are almost certainly inaccurate. And if they are selectively focusing, then they are disadvantaging other places that may actually be more popular (Fogbound? London?) but that don't fall within the categories being targeted by the bots.

We need transparency and information, or this data is literally garbage, and garbage moreover that may be causing harm.

[Aleesha Littlebird]

i own a private region that i bought from LL & pay $259usd monthly for. we are moderate, covenant states we are a pg sim. we have a 2 story game room that is free to use for anyone who plays table games and a beautiful garden to explore. That being said.... ive only had region for 3 months and i have 10+ bonnie bots on my land daily. its creepy. i dont mind natural traffic, but i will continue to block each new one they create... act of love my foot...

[David Cartier]

I was inclined to object to these bots at first, but if I've learned anything in almost twenty years of this, it's that Linden Lab consistently makes very poor business decisions. This new product or service, whatever it is, has done a lot of late to enliven the mortifying corpse of Second Life. It seems to increase the usability rather than making things worse. Those concerned about privacy are loons; there isn't any and it doesn't matter. Our stupid security globes have turned Second Life into 12000 paranoid little North Koreas, with shopping events our neutral ground. When you don't see anything going on in the dozens of sims around you, it is nice, potentially useful to know where everyone actually is, even if it's some stupid nude beach where a bunch of freakish, fat-assed avatars stand around glaring at each other.

[a concerned resident]

This just isn't good enough from LL. Until they do better I've blanked my profile except for a protest message.

[botssuck]

Vote with your feet. Drop Premium. Perhaps a dent to the pocket book might show the Lindens the light.

[Valentina Kendal]

If the past is any guide, I foresee LL buying Bonnie Bots.

[Arwyn Quandry]

Absolutely love seeing the data that BonnieBots bring in. It's fascinating to go through the attachments and watch the Marketplace feed. Plus, the live data on where people are actually hanging out is so useful for finding events that you might never otherwise see! Opt out if you don't like it, ban them from your parcels if you're annoyed, that's totally cool by me. I hope this quiets down the loudmouths yelling about the sky falling and lets the rest of us enjoy it.

[Skate Foss]

Its not just BonnieBots, its all Bots. Most every ‘land’ owner in SecondLife has experienced the intrusion of Bots. Most bots, (99%) of them have no identifying info explaining what they’re tasks and purposes are. They are scripted agents, as Linden Lab calls them, that are intrusive and uninvited, and 99% of SecondLife landowners do not want them. Yet LindenLab turns a blind eye to this. I’ve attended Governance meetings where Lindens openly snickered at me when I would show them lists of the 100s of Bots that rezzed on my sim. Do not expect Linden Lab to do anything.
As SecondLife residents we must use the tools available to us to stop Bot intrusions. On About Land, click the box that visitors must have payment info on file. Period done. No more Bots. If your friends Alts are suddenly unable to rez, add them to the allowed box. This is the easiest way to stop them. Until LindenLab does something, this is it. Don’t expect LL to do anything. 16 years here has taught me that.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

A few of the questions I'd like answered by the Bonniebots people:

1) How secure is your data? What do you have in place to prevent it being accessed, hacked, or stolen? (For those who don't believe that likely to happen, google "The Wrong Hands" and "Second Life.")

2) What data have you been collecting that has not been publicly revealed yet? For instance, do you have the names / UUIDs of avatars in the regions your bots have been surveying?

3) Do you have plans to monetize any of this data in any way? If so, how?

4) How will the "opt-out" (or, better, "opt-in") option work?

5) What exactly do we get to "opt-out" of? Data harvesting, or merely publication of our profiles? In what other ways will we continue to be "counted," even if we opt out?

6) Can you assure us that if we DO opt out from your web site, that you will not harvest our IP addresses as we do so, and associate that with our accounts in your database?

7) Are the visits of your bots to regions in the grid truly random, or do they follow an algorithm of some sort that prioritizes certain regions, or kinds of place?

So much of this remains mysterious. Transparency is the key to trust: if Bonniebots wants us to play along, they need to be a lot more forthcoming than they have been about the methods, their operation, and their intentions.

[CMK]

@Arwyn Quandry - I have banned all avatars with the name BonnieBelle as it is stated those are her bots. Yet, since banning them statistics are still showing up every hour clocking my sim and the number of avatars in it along with gods only know what else.

So BonnieBots has lied about that, what else are they lying about? As Scylla said they’re lacking transparency and THAT is the concerning part. That is why we want LL to put their foot down and stand up for the people paying them hundreds of dollars every month to be able to protect our privacy.

[Kai]

I am a premium member & have a mainland parcel, these bots are constantly in and out of the sim I am on ALL DAY LONG, multiple times a day often within minutes of one leaving another arrives. I straight up ban them from my parcel, and hope to god that my neighbors will do the same. Frankly I think ANY account that is a bot should be required per TOS to list that they are a bot so people can choose to ban them or allow them as they so choose. Transparency is very much needed in the realm of bots and data harvesting (theft in my opinion) within Second Life.

[sirhc desantis]

'Most everyone involved with Second Life has been avidly talking for days about...' nope. if you mean the usual suspects on the forum (currently logged in : 39) then yep. i have not been able to log inworld since december basically as i am nursing a broken arm (apologies for no caps - had to remap kb to get brackets as it is) but in conversation with those that have - 'much less than most everyone' has even heard of bonnie and its 'bots. theres a prob right there.
annoying external av info sites have been around since i joined. i believe the spampire ones still are for a start and probably others. useful for sim admins to spot them i guess. and they don't have the possibility of tracking where someone is.
oh yep. nothing to stop bummies bot army expanding to link uuid to position. hey if you are getting the number of avs using llgetagentlist() you have the uuids so why not? would not even have to be real time - list last 5 or so places an av seen and when and voila - stalker paradise. so much for someones opt in (note - 'in') ability to grant 'see me' to individuals of their choice. for me personally, no biggie, for others - yeah.
as for opt out well now just like that 'sploder alt checking crap - stuff that for the reasons already given. thats a minor annoyance, easy to avoid. don't spend money with any one using it. this is different.

i would have not chimed in as these things tend to settle out but the addition of account status to llgetobjectdetails() irked me. published on an external site to boot. can just see someone making a big old arrow shaped follower with 'freeloader' in flashing neon. wouldn't that be fun and an ice breaker at parties. fine for me - this is not my premie account anyway.

still, *techbros* gotta (best redacted). btw what happened to the font here or is it just my firefox playing up

[Onyx]

People pay outrageous prices to own land in Second life. Sim owners should have the ability to opt out of having constant bots going to their sims. I do not like what bonniebots is doing. A lot of people are going to be upset by this. So many bots now monitoring the grid that its impossible to ban them all. Only way to stop them is to make the sim you own private or ban them at this point. Its annoying. Not sure store owners will appreciate having their store sales accurate or not on their website. This says it will not display avatar names but when you click on the sale going through it takes you to the marketplace of the seller... Easy to find their name anyway. When you search avatars it tells you if they are premium or not and what kind of premium account they own. Is anything private anymore ??

[Streex Foxtrot]

It needs to be OPT-IN, and the business earnings-Those should be private.

I make what I think is a fair amount of linden but nothing like what I saw on those pages. Upwards of 1 Million lindens in 14 days? That should be between the person earning that money and Linden Labs. It should not be public data. I don't sell on the marketplace ( though I was considering it as another revenue stream), and if this stays OPT-OUT instead of OPT-IN, I will take the whole marketplace down in a heartbeat. Linden Labs gave them this data or, at minimum, access to an API to gather it. I feel they're only doing OPT-OUT because some people won't know. If they change it to OPT IN, who will opt into this? No one.

Data can be used for an array of actionable purposes. I have TONS of customer data, but that's my responsibility to protect and keep that data safe. I don't feel linden labs is doing the same for me. Not with something like this.

[Lemona b]

I'm just hearing about this now and I'm disgusted. So that means linden labs allowed them to do this for a bit even though they say they protect our data. So even if I opt out in the future they likely still have data on me. This isn't okay and we don't need more stupid bots in Sl anyway. It's very clear that most sl users don't even want to be able to see this data. It's a useless project that is making people uncomfortable. How do we know this third party site won't turn around and sell our data? There are whole Sims of bots to skew traffic numbers I'm sure that messes their data up. I have also read a ton of the comments on here and how this third party site is collecting this stuff feels half assed. If it's not accurate why you publishing it. I don't want them to have my IP or anything on me. They aren't linden labs I don't trust them. I didn't sign up for sl to have my privacy invaded. All we got is someone's word that they are doing it for the love of secondlife. Seems linden labs has chosen to blindly believe them.

[That one with the chicken]

If you don't want them on your land, make or group only or ban them. Second Life isn't private unless you make it so. They're not aggregating any private information anyway. Everything the bots grab is publicly available information. There are so many Karens on SL and it's crap like this that makes them all come out. Lol! No one is trying to mess with your pixels. Calm down.

[0xc0ffea]

The business earnings are back on the site, so is the avatar search.

You can opt out by sending an IM to bonniebelle86 although it's not actually clear what that opts you out from. Do they still collect your data, do they just not list you in the AV search, who knows.

They have no published privacy policy.

As Prok found out, they are weirdly protective of their own privacy. Funny that.

Also .. funny how bot stans all seem to be guys who just can't help flying the misogyny flag.

[blockbonniebots]

Easy fix for Bonniebots (for now until they start changing their bot names). Go to your region ban list and click add. In the search field search for "BonnieBelle" and when the search results come back click the first entry on the list and hold shift and then click the last one. Click ok and all the Bots plus the owners accounts are now banned from the region.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I don't want to read too much into this, but I've just been suspended for three days from the SL forums for posting a thread directing people how to "opt out."

That's five threads locked now (and one hapless OP suspended). LL really seems not to want us talking about this.

[Arwyn Quandry]

@Scylla Rhiadra: You forgot to mention that part where you misrepresented LL as having an "agreement" with BB, which Kiera had to clarify that they do not. You've participated in every thread about the topic and every thread was eventually locked. What did you hope to gain by opening yet another? Hate to quote such an old stand-up routine, but here's your sign.

[CMK]

@blockbonniebots they already do use other bots besides the BonnieBelle's I have been banning bots for a week now, my sim banlist is approaching 200 of the 500 available ban slots and still every hour my sim is clocked and reported on the site.

@Scylla Ugh I hate to say it but I think whoever said knowing LL's track record they're going to buy out the bots and use them themselves...might be right. This is some major BS. Sorry you got thrown in jail for trying to do the right thing.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

@Arwyn -- What I hoped to gain was to inform people how to opt out if they wanted. That was literally almost the entire OP.

It almost seems that LL doesn't want people knowing how to do that? I don't think that's the case, but . . . well, LL isn't doing a good job of reading the room on this one.

[Bonniebot Hater]

How strange that Linden Lab tries to hold its hand above the head of bonniebots.

With 67 million user accounts Second Life is a nice chunk for these data farmers.

Do not believe for a moment they are "doing it for the love of Second Life". They harvest to make money from it.

Linden Lab allows them because Linden Lab itself is interested to learn how they can make money from the data of Second Life users in world. Why do you think Patch Linden, who doesn't care to answers customers is suddenly having meetings with these data scrapers?

From now on you no longer seem to have privacy on the Second Life grid, you are being watched and spied on by bots. The amount of bots is getting larger every single month. As some have pointed out you get 10 bots entering your sim in a day or more who come to spy on you and your activities. Some of these bots might be even coming to listen in on your voice chat conversations.

It is also very possible that this increase in bots in recent months comes from Linden Lab their new owner Oberwolf Linden to extract extra income from the grid.

It is surprising to watch how the increase of bots is paired with him taking over the Second Life grid and also to see Linden Lab their unwillingness to respect user privacy. Big data is big business. It is possible he is using Second Life now as a way to data mine the grid and avatars on the grid so he can sell this data.

Linden Lab says they aren't selling your data and your e-mails but who can verify this? Linden Lab has a database with millions of user profiles, their payment info, e-mail addresses, avatar information, shopping habits, tracking on the Second Life grid, knowing your interests, being able to record and transcribe your voice chat and text chat.

Now we see when people start a forum thread on the Second Life forums how Keira Linden in a hurry comes to lock forum threads and tries to brush it off like it is nothing and people are dumb and do not know what they are talking about.

Do not forget that the idea behind the Oculus Rift from Facebook was to track your eye movements so they could spy on you and harvest the data as they knew what you are interested in.

Linden Lab their attitude is really concerning and might cost them dearly once more users start to become aware of what is going on with all the spying in Second Life these days.

Shame on you Linden Lab for not taking action to protect the privacy of your users. You must really have big reasons nobody can know about to let these bots harvest user data that you are willing to put up with community outrage that will only start to grow over time.

[colleen Criss]

https://observatory.mozilla.org/analyze/bonniebots.com

[Evil Bots That Farm]

A couple of months back Linden Lab purchased Caspervend, most likely also with the intention to collect data from merchants and sales in world.

Combine this with the increase in bots and data scrapers at around the same time frame making their entrance on the grid. Then we have Linden Lab protecting these bots that are annoying their clients and it doesn't take much to put two and two together.

Then the bull about how great bonniebots are and residents must embrace the bonniebots and how they make the grid a better place?

Hmmm things to think about....

[formerlandower]

One of the joys of using SecondLife before this was the fact that the lab was trapped in the past and did not pick up the "you are the product" model that the rest of the industry has taken up with data mining. This whole Bonnie bot situation has made it so that we are now the product for a 3rd party company that's mining data and invading privacy that the lab is not even profiting from. One of the reasons people put up with the bad performance and incompetence from the lab was that it was still a relatively private platform. By using Second Life and paying for the overpriced land you are paying $230 a month to be the product for Bonniebots. I can't see this being something most users want to do.

[jb]

I think that maybe a request under the GDPR to have information removed might yield interesting results.

[NMFurn]

Kieran Linden posted on the last locked thread on the Forum "will be available to the recipients (dependent on the nature of the tool) and may be publicly posted and otherwise disclosed without limitation as to its use by us or by a third party."

Basically she has just told us SL users that our content which is OUR copyright e.g. product images, content (3d items uploaded) etc may be utilized by third parties. NO that is not what IP we granted on upload per the TOS. Also this BonnieBots is hosted in Iceland via a masked host. I will be filing DMCA on their service provider to have my commercial work removed. I did not grant a license nor permission for them to display outside of Second Life.

[Tankgirl]

50 % of the MP merchants on their list have now asked to be taken down, which makes it a big sad joke. Their privacy should have been protected by LL, but they proved not to give a shit about their privacy. That is the saddest.

[0xc0ffea]

If I ban someone from a region, LL applies a short term MAC/IP ban so they can't come back with an alt (lasts till next reboot).

If they ~somehow~ manage to come back to the region, that's ban evasion.

Yet here we are seeing bonnies banned over and over and it not making a difference. Are they intentionally evading bans to carry on collecting data ?

Is it ok to evade bans if it's done by a bot ?

If I ban someone, and they say their alts is a bot .. do I have to shrug and let them past with a smile and a cheeky wink ?

What if we all pretend to be bots .. can we do whatever we like ?

[Tankgirl]

Shame on the Lindens for letting this be done to the merchants. Really. It’s a new low to have the people that work for them for free to be this exposed, and them not do anything about it. Shame on them.

[keepthebotsout]

Switching your region to payment info only will prevent the bots from getting in. It also keeps out new residents. Perhaps if enough people did this and it affected new residents from being able to visit anywhere it might get LL's attention.

[t]

It truly is disgusting what LL is allowing to happen. These Bonnie Bots are doing more than just getting land info. They are publicly displaying people's personal information. Premium/plus status and even displaying marketplace linden earnings from marketplace sales of merchants and creator's. These 2 pieces of information are locked behind a log-in being required and even MFA if people have thise enabled. How are complete strangers able to breach past login information and gather private data like this? A lawsuit will be happening probably. This is absurd and illegal. No one gave approval nor was anyone warned of this happening.

[Dee]

Forgive me for being a smartaleck, but BonnieBots sounds like a lovely resource for griefers and troublemakers.

How are they protecting property owners from abusing the information they're publishing? I own a full SIM, and allowed a friend to use a quarter of it to open his own business. Now I have to decide between letting him keep that business going, and protecting the privacy of my HOME which takes up half the SIM, and another home that is on the last quarter.

I agree with the many statements above. This type of data mining needs to be stopped. BonnieBots needs to be regulated, and if players are comfortable with their data being shared, that should be at the players' choice to opt in to such a service. The idea of free, unsolicited advertising might be appealing to merchants at a certain level, but not everyone is in SL to generate random traffic or sell things. The right to NOT be counted should be respected

[Dee]

*typo correction.

How are they protecting property owners from BonnieBots users abusing the information that BonnieBots are publishing?

[Flower]

What I find most disturbing is that people from Linden Lab keep shutting down any conversations about the BonnieBots. Could it be because their legal team advised them to do that? If that is the case, it should make us wonder what is really going on.

[bet]

How does bonniebot know to list an account as premium plus when that account has no linden home and shows no more than 5 groups max , then hides them?

Was there a data transfer? Data theft?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

@ Bet -- There is a relatively newish LSL function, intended primarily for Moles and landowners who want to restrict access to something to Plus, Premium, and Premium Plus residents, that can discover this information. The function can be used by anyone in a script, so, although this is hardly "public" information, it is accessible if you have the know-how.

[bet]

Thanks Scylla --I guess Linden has firmly turned its' back on us stooges ,I mean residents .

I feel totally pimped out. Think I'll renew Premium plus, premium or my rentals on private estates? -- not a melting snowball's chance .

[bet]

Ripped from the headlines, JPMorgan Chase paid ~175m for ~ 4.3 million college student loan info files from a company named "Frank" -- the what all was /wasn't is in court filings now but that's a market price to consider.

What are the residents of SL worth IF one knows if they'll use a credit card, be up-sellable, how often they log in , if they "live" inworld [rent,own] etc. Would say, Metaverse bid on that list? Guess we'll find out? Hope not.

[Freedom]

Why are creators mad about their sale numbers being posted? Why are they hiding? Information should be public.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

@ Freedom -- "Information should be public"! What a great slogan! It even fits on a t-shirt!

What "information"? All information? Everything? And to whom?

Have you considered the full implications of your catchy but highly reductive little slogan?

I'll repeat: we're not talking about SL Amazon or Tesla here. In some ways, "corporate" SL is role play: the fact is that these are mostly individual digital artists or hobbyists, generating pretty modest incomes at best. In the best case scenario, some of these people may be able to live off the proceeds of SL sales, but there aren't exactly vast numbers of those.

So, how much "information" about YOUR income do you think should be "free"? Would you like your weekly earnings posted on a public web site for anyone to see? Because that's essentially what you're asking these people to do.

I'm ALL for transparency when it comes to the wealthy and corporations. But these people -- that ain't them.

[Ganymede]

@0xc0ffea "Opting out on the bonnie bot website will tie your IP address to your SL identity in their database."

I love the smell of truth in the morning. It reminds me of big data realities.

@David Cartier "Those concerned about privacy are loons; there isn't any and it doesn't matter."

My favorite profile comment: "Nowadays privacy means money not leaving your account, little else."

@David Cartier "Our stupid security globes have turned Second Life into 12000 paranoid little North Koreas, with shopping events our neutral ground. When you don't see anything going on in the dozens of sims around you, it is nice, potentially useful to know where everyone actually is."

It's not easy to overstate the collective paranoia in SL, or the sense of emptiness, isolation, or loneliness creates. Too often, given the prevalence of in-world sexuality, SL becomes a secretive, less than fruitful search for other residents (preferably though not necessarily real) willing to proffer a magisterial summons that you remove your clothing, or some such, in service to them. ~s

The truly relevant data, the meaningful information seemingly unavailable in real-time is the number of bots/scripted agents present on a populated area at any given time. Now there's a worthwhile goal for BonnieBots. A HUD perhaps? After all, if someone's going to masturbate whilst passionately 'engaged,' shouldn't they have a way to know if their partner Ava is real?

(Maybe such a tool already exists. Doesn't LL require scripted agent accounts to be registered as such? Why wouldn't such a tool already exist?)

[Ganymede]

@Evil Bots That Farm "A couple of months back Linden Lab purchased Caspervend, most likely also with the intention to collect data from merchants and sales in world."

The intention to "collect" is likely a misnomer. Sure, they'll collect that data now too, maybe even attach a vendor fee, but in some respects they've always had date/place/time/names/amount/balance contained in transaction history.

Perhaps the more relevant objective was to acquire the accumulated (ancillary?) data from what are likely millions of archived in-world transactions dating back a decade or more. And, of course, LL has not denied it may choose to apply in-world fees to Caspervend transactions in the future.

[Ganymede]

Oops! Speaking of data gathering & privacy, etc.

Has anyone asked LL what kinds of data, or what becomes of the data Legacy/Meshbody gathers whenever its HUD connects to their off-world servers to authorize use?

If you want to paint a nightmarish picture of your in-world identity{s) being linked to your IP address and subsequently offered up for sale, ponder that circumstance for a while.

* Maybe I'm overlooking some built-in LL safety protocols. It wouldn't be the first time I'm sure.

[legalbealge]

A personal data breach can be broadly defined as a security incident that has affected the confidentiality, integrity or availability of personal data. In short, there will be a personal data breach whenever any personal data is accidentally lost, destroyed, corrupted or disclosed; if someone accesses the data or passes it on without proper authorisation; or if the data is made unavailable and this unavailability has a significant negative effect on individuals.#Opt out is effective immediatly.

You have been warned about the legal consequences of the violation of breaching, stealing and displaying personal private data, aka memebership level, gleemed using spyware and made openly public to be abused.

GAther data by asking fist and remove the full avatar details. Nobody was asked and so far most do not agree with you displaying it all. That is numerical data gathering its spyware use to breach personal data and information privacy. It is against many countries laws and you are subjected to those laws and i hope you non profit status is actually registered and the full details as per law on information harvesting is published asap.

[Chanti]

These are basically false user account spam and generally unwanted.
I sure didn't consent to be tracked by an unknown party.

I don't even know what 'Banana sticker' means on their site.

I already opted-out but they've already gathered a lot of information on me which makes me displeased.

[Chant]

Added:

In addition I want to have the choice to share my data if -I- want to. Not being stalked by some creepy braindead AI that feeds back to a source to be picked through by someone potentially making money off of me and I don't get a lick of it.

[Yeya]

Second Life is a Virtual World on the internet. With signing up, Linden Labs explains about their TOS (terms of service), Privacy and GDPR. The Lab also announced in 2019 to be a collaborator of Data Privacy Day -- an international effort to empower individuals and business to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust.

Roaming bots in Second Life collect data, thus information about residents on the grid. The data gets collected by 'other residents', rather than only the agreement made by Linden Lab and their 3rd parties. If Linden Lab approves of data collecting by other residents. How does Linden Lab seek to ensure that the data is used in a correct way?

[NotMyRealName]

I was informed that there is no longer an opt out system. Avatar Search is supposedly "removed" (the search, not the data collected), which was the only thing you could opt out of. This is all bad-faith and clearly contemptuous of SL content creators and residents. And LL gives it a pass. This is the beginning of my last days on SL.

[Woner]

Lil new tool to get rid of them
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Land-Security-No-Bots-Ban-Bots/24673231

[CoradeCarl]

I don't care about the BonnieBots. I rather enjoy the site and data that gets collected. I own over 100 parcels across 52 sims and I have visitor trackers on them so I can see when people land on them. I see Bonniebots land on my lands all the time and they are the only bots that I dont ban. I run a script on my land that has a huge list of bots that get put on the banlist but bonnie is not one of them because she publicly publishes the data and im a bit of a data and numbers nerd.

I have no problem with BonnieBots or even LouBottin bots (another I dont ban oops) collecting my data. None of the data is RL personal data, its all SL related data. Who cares if my avatar sex, height, mesh body, how much land I own, what groups own them are published.

I dont get what the big deal is. Your real life name, location, or any details about your real life is not being displayed.

Get a grip people. Go outside and touch grass sometimes.