Linden Lab's Jack Linden, head of the land team has announced that Linden Lab will not go ahead with previously-announced plans to license network advertisers on the mainland of the virtual environment Second Life.
That doesn't mean that Linden Lab is going to be light on regulation, however -- or that licensing is totally off the menu. There's a whole list of requirements, the violation of any of which may be reported by any Second Life user under the Harassment category and may lead to account sanctions and being stripped of Second Life assets.
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These regulations apply specifically to the primary Linden estate, that comprises the mainland. That means there are a few simulators that are connected to the mainland (and thus appear to be a part of it) that are not Linden-owned, but are in fact owned by third-parties. There are only a very few of these.
The very first violation off the rank is number of advertising locations. You, and groups you are a member of may own no more than 50 such locations, combined. 'We will allow no more than 50 advertising locations owned by a single individual, whether personally owned or via groups in which you are a member,' is the literal statement, and perhaps, the one most likely to cause a fuss. Do you know how many advertising locations the groups you are in actually have?
We figure the broad wording here is primarily to catch abusers, rather than folks who just chance to be in many advertising-heavy groups. Benefit of the doubt and all that. If the rule was to be applied exactly as stated, likely considerable chaos would ensue.
You may however, exceed that 50 locations figure, if you have permission (in writing) from the Lab. That is essentially a license, so the whole notion of licensing isn't entirely dead. We would not expect many (perhaps not any) such licenses to be granted.
The next big item is that advertisers are limited to a single advertising location per mainland simulator. Got two advertising parcels in a sim? Better fix that before 1 October. Signs advertising land as being for-sale count for these policies.
Now the basic nuts-and-bolts:
- Adverts should be grounded to the terrain, not floating.
- Adverts should extend no higher than 8m from the ground.
- No rotating, no flashing content and no particles.
- No unsolicited dispensing of IMs, notecards, landmarks or content.
- No light sources or glow (full bright is acceptable however).
- Advertising hoardings should be Phantom.
- Adverts must be clearly PG in nature [for those of you not keeping track, that's the equivalent of an MPAA G-Rating - Tat]
- No sound and no temp-on-rez content.
- Ban lines should be switched off.
Finally, Linden Lab requires you to remove or modify any advertising if they ask you to do so. That's "in its sole discretion", so if they ask, you must comply. Failing to do so is considered to be a violation of the Terms of Service.
The Lab makes specific mention of the use of Alt-accounts to attempt to cheat or bypass these regulations. To the best of our knowledge, the Lab does have quite sophisticated alt-detection mechanisms buried in the back-end of their system, though such data is not routinely accessed. The reiteration, however, seems to contain a veiled assurance that they will do so if necessary.
Aside from some potential friction generated by the first two items (total locations and locations-per-region) -- and the likelyhood that this will considerably impact the mainland land market for a month or two as advertisers suddenly shed parcels (willingly or not), it is rather promising to see so many plain and unambiguous items as part of a published Lab policy.
