I’d be curious if Mechanized Life has any thoughts on this. I should check to see if they have a posted privacy policy.

*Adds to list of things to do.*

And I certainly did not want to attack Clever Zebra.

All I wanted to say is basically:
(1) I consider it good business practice to inform visitors, when I collect “personal” data about them that allows me to track them down individually.
(2) There are better ways to collect usage data for an installation which works anonymously. Some of the more innovative advertising networks on the web work that way. It is not rocket science. No one needs to store my name or IP address to identify “uniques” for his website (or island in SL) example - not even my avatars name.

Now, in all fairness to Clever Zebra, they are running an open source business ‘aggregation’ service. Their model is that they give items for free - and they’re pretty significant items (and while very corporate looking and so on, their auditoriums and galleria are really well executed). By giving them for free, they’re hoping to be able to offer services. Free includes events, seminars, and educational activities.

So, I see it as a fair trade-off: if you’d like items at no charge, or if you’d like to attend no cost exhibitions, in return you allow them to collect information on your presence and they earn the right to contact you to discuss collateral services. What’s missing from the equation, however, is the ability to opt-in or be notified.

And instead of picking on Clever Zebra, I should note that the service they were using was Mechanized Life, which does not track exclusively for Clever Zebra. I have no idea what their install base is but I’m fairly sure that CZ isn’t the only sim on the grid capturing this kind of information.

So the question is, should avatar monitoring devices be allowed? Should there be an opt-in or notification policy? Does any of this break the TOS? Do avatars have less rights to privacy and surveillance? Or, as has been argued elsewhere on this blog, is surveillance just the “way it is” and we should learn to live with it?

Additionally, for most purposes easily imaginable to me, it is not necessary to collect this kind of data. It might be desirable to recognize the fact, that the same avatar visits your location again and again. Gathering data about the age distribution or verified status of visitors is certainly interesting information, too. But all of this information can be provided by using anonymous profiles, too, without invading resident’s privacy.