Tateru,

You're such an extremist!

Of course it has an effect. Those who register and label their bots, say, their model bots for their stores, and thereby take them out of the traffic count, which is the plan, have totally increased their estimation in the eyes of customers, and prospective shoppers. It increases consumer confidence in the traffic metric, which is a good thing when merited. So it's all good.

I guess you've never studied how crime control programs or post-conflict programs work. Amazingly, people *do* bring in their arms, especially if there's an incentive -- in conflict zones, even of the worst sort, when they have a disarmament and demobilization effort, people comply, not everybody, but enough to start to restore civilization. Same in big cities, where you can turn in guns and avoid prosecution then.

Here, it's an instant reputation boost as everyone hates bots that defraud traffic.

You make it sound as if the execution of the removal of traffic is some pie-in-the-sky never-do thing. But it is in the plan and I think it will be done fairly quickly. I think the Lindens want to see if all those fakers on the Concierge list who claim their models were vital for showing garments and didn't intend to boost traffic are really telling the truth. Then they'll act.

Why all the faux mystery about the timing, Tateru?! The timing *goes with* the call to register the third-party viewers, as the phenomena is *all of a piece*. it would be silly to crack down on third-party copying viewers and leave copybots of the old sort still a free rein.