As a part of their ongoing effort to renew and improve the overall experience on the Second Life mainland (Linden estate), Linden Lab have announced that they're going after a number of so-called 'land-cutters'. Land-cutters were formerly almost synonymous with ad-farmers.

Practitioners would buy a larger plot of land, and then subdivide it into the smallest possible squares (16 sqm). Sometimes the squares were packed with advertising towers (some ads were genuine, and others merely fabricated), some were left bare, and some packed with junk. High prices were set on these parcels and many paid them to be rid of the eyesores. There were few places on the mainland where you could stand and not see at least one group of them.

Continue reading Linden Lab taking action against land-cutters

Linden Lab taking action against land-cutters originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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Continue reading Linden Lab drops advertising licensing (mostly)

Linden Lab drops advertising licensing (mostly) originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jack Linden has dropped the next shoe on mainland policy changes in Second Life, while we're expecting plenty more shoes, this one at least seems to have been widely welcomed, increasing the overall crack-down on what are known colloquially as ad-farms.

The short form is 'Network advertising (Ad Farming) will no longer be permitted on the Linden Mainland unless you have a written agreement with Linden Lab (essentially meaning a license to advertise)', writes Jack. There's additional explanations and caveats to that, though. The last policy post on ad-farms was certainly considerably deficient and seemed to cause more problems than it solved.

Users who are are operating advertising networks that are infringing this policy have until 1 October 2008 to obtain a license and comply with the terms of that license, or to remove their content. Jack does not say what will occur otherwise, but content-removal and account-sanctions are the safe bet.

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Continue reading Linden Lab to license network advertisers in Second Life

Linden Lab to license network advertisers in Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab's staff for the last month or so have been mentioning in public office hours that they have been looking into so-called 'ad farms' in Second Life and talking about potential changes of policy. Indeed, Jack Linden of Linden Lab's land team recently made specific mention of that on the Linden blog.

Ad farms appear to exist for a variety of purposes. Linden Lab is targeting one of these, specifically land-extortion.

Land-extortion ad-farms involve the ad-farmer taking a parcel of any size (it's most common on land parcels that are only four metres square, but there doesn't seem to be any limitation on parcel size), and cramming prominent, unsightly, (often spinning) advertisements on the land and setting the land for sale for many times the going market rate per square metre.

Continue reading Linden Lab takes a position on ad farms

Linden Lab takes a position on ad farms originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.