Linden Lab Adds Bot-Blocking Tools for SL Landowners, Carefully-Worded Policy Warning SL Data Collectors; Bonnie Bots Replies With Curious Meme

Several months after Bonnie Bots brought enormous Sturm und Drang to the Second Life community, Linden Lab has added tools for landowners to block bots from their property -- and posted a warning to collectors of Second Life user data like, well, Bonnie Bots.

The updated tool is "deny_bots", and as that suggests, when the setting for that is switched to On, "all scripted agents that are not explicitly listed in the estate’s Allowed Access list will be denied access to all of the regions within the Estate."

As for the warning, it's available here in Linden Lab's Scripted Agent Policy.

"Read this before considering collecting data in SL for use outside of SL," as Linden Lab Infosec head Soft Linden put it warningly, "or if you are a resident who wants to understand and assert your rights regarding third-party sites and tools."

Tyche Shepherd (pictured), who uses bots to gather data for her much-read Grid Survey land analytics site, has an ambivalent reaction to this change.

"I’m surprised it's taken this long," she tells me. "Scripted agent settings were introduced in 2009. In some ways its a shame but I fully understand why the Lab has introduced the ability to block access, though it may have been more flexible to allow or block at the region level rather than estate. Personally it doesn’t impact my Grid Survey weekly online region surveys, as these don’t require physical visits." However, she adds, it does prevent her from doing sampling surveys she once conducted.

The wording of the Scripted Agent Policy is curious. It represents Linden Lab's "policy" on bots and data collection, but is also somewhat toothless. It states that using bots to artificially boost traffic is against the company's TOS:

You may not attempt to gain an unfair advantage in search results through the use of Scripted Agents to inflate the traffic for a parcel. This policy applies to both mainland and private estates, as Second Life search includes both. Please refer to the Second Life Terms and Conditions, section 5.i.

.. At the same time, using bots to publish user data from within Second Life to the web is not explicitly stated to be against TOS, but more like something that may fall into a Not Cool category -- and also may be against actual real life laws:

Data transferred outside of the Second Life service or its supporting websites is not exempt from protection under applicable data privacy laws. This applies whether data is collected by Scripted Agents, LSL scripts, or external tools. Access to the Second Life service and access to Personal Data of Second Life Residents are both conditioned on adherence to all applicable global privacy regulations governing the collection, storage, processing, or transmission of Personal Data.

These laws include Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). We recommend that you seek guidance from a privacy attorney for additional, updated information before using Personal Data of Second Life Residents outside of Second Life. 

Indeed my reading of the policy is basically: "If you don't like bots collecting data from your property, use these tools we gave you. If you really don't like it, call the cops. Also, if you're a SL data collector: Better call Saul."

And as I read that, Linden Lab would only take action against a data collector/reporter found to be in violation of real life laws. 

"I think its more a reminder to the data scrapers that they need to be compliant with the relevant privacy and data handling regulations," Tyche tells me. "Legislation such as GDPR and the CCPA implicitly protect citizens in their own jurisdictions even if the data is collected outside those jurisdictions , now IANAL. But I'm sure the Lab (which of course is covered by the CCPA) got their own counsel to sign off the wording in the policy."

As for Bonnie Bots, the site that pretty much single-handedly started these changes in motion, I asked their PR rep about this, and they only sent back this curious meme-flavored reply:

So seems like Bonnie Bots will keep botting until further notice!

Comments

[sirhc desantis]

:) the bot blocking stuffs is totes silly - i may even unregister mine. (that would be sirhcd in case anyone cares. its used for breaking stuff we make, damn sight easier than a live one when sorting out seating, and pushing off high platforms when bored. lives in a freebie container home when activated) The definition of 'stuff thats not cool' is why I still adore SL. Almost tempted to bother with the official forum - but thats a closed shop so why risk the mewling of the usual suspects

[juicenot]

@sirhc -- totes didnt unnerstan what ya said

[Adeon]

Entire estates will block bots as a gut-reaction, just because they can - which of course will stop personal use of bot accounts for private matters, until they simply register the account as a bot so they can continue using for personal use.

This is kinda stupid.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I don't think the new rules are quite as "toothless" as this suggests. The new "scripted agent" policy and the separate notes on private data use spell out, for the first time, LL's attitude towards the exportation of in-world data to off-platform sites, viz:

"Second Life presents select information about Residents to each other within the Second Life environment. This presentation is for the sole purpose of facilitating interaction within Second Life. Without a separate agreement in place (for e.g. as a sub-processor or vendor), there is no default right that any third party has to collect, store, process, or transmit a Second Life Resident’s Personal Data outside of Second Life." (Emphasis mine)

No, that does not say in so many words that LL is going to come after you if you publish personal date for which you have not obtained a "separate agreement." And in 99% of cases, I'm sure they won't, because it won't be worth it. But it does mean that they can act if they decide that the operation in question poses enough of a threat to residents, or to LL's own legal position. To quote Soft Linden in the announcement thread for this on the SL Forums:

"But yes, the goal of a policy update is to give Linden Lab the ability to act based on documented standards."

How will they do that? By throttling the in-world capacity for that operation to gather data. Which is in essence exactly what they've just done to Bonnie Bots by these new rules, and most particularly by issuing a blanket ban on all bots in Bellisseria.

LL can't act directly against off-platform web sites, but it can eliminate their in-world presence, which is also the way in which they broke RedZone in 2011: not by having the RZ database removed, but rather by nuking its in-world operation.

And if you want an indication of how effective this kind of threat is likely to be, just look at how the Bonnie Bots web site has been slowly but surely eviscerated over the past couple of months.

As for the response of Bonnie Bots? Well, some of the posts have been removed and others bowdlerized, but Skyler Pancake was fairly eloquent about their feelings on forum thread.

I don't think they're very happy.

[Iggy 1.0]

Bonnie Bots could make my life as a seedy merchant in a pirate-themed RP sim a LOT more fun by having the Bots wear our meter and HUD. They could sail around in galleons full of RP coin while gathering data.

We'd swoop down upon them, shooting them with grape shot then running them through with cutlasses.

That's my 2 cents on Bots.

[Joseph Lara]

Thanks for such a pleasant post.