Linden Lab takes a position on ad farms
by Tateru Nino 
Feb 13th 2008 at 10:00PM
Filed under: Culture, Economy, News items, Second Life
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.
The new policy seems a little awkward, since it appears to target the intent of the parcel, rather than using objectively measurable criteria: "Using content, particularly advertising, to deliberately and negatively affect another resident's view so as to sell a parcel for an unreasonable price, will be deemed unacceptable and dealt with as a violation of our community standards."
Intent is notoriously difficult to adjudge. Your view of whether this is occurring or not, and the view of the investigating Linden may differ. We expect there to be some disputes about this. This policy, of course, would only apply to Linden-owned estates (what is called the mainland). Private estate owners have their own land-use and zoning policies.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
NekoAli said on 10:53PM 2-13-2008
Akward to judge or not, I'm glad at least the Lindens are finally doing something about this. Resident action against these ad farms is difficult, limited and can often play right into what the owner wants, ie buying the land or the land around it to get rid of or cover up the signs.
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Adz Childs said on 11:32PM 2-13-2008
This kind of thing can only be a judgment call.
I am happy to see a _measured_ response to a community problem rather than blanket ban with dire consequences! Hopefully this is how they do it from now on.
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Prokofy neva said on 4:56PM 2-14-2008
Why all this coyness and blushing and stammering about intent?
If you put a giant antisemitic pillar on a 512 lot divided up into 32 pieces, and set 4 of them for sale for $4911 and the rest for $200 and $500, enabling others to buy them and set them for $1000 or $10,000, your intent is unmistakeable: a) inciting hatred and b) extorting people to buy back the view.
Did you have another idea for what they are doing that would make you ambivalent? What would that be, celebration of Jewish culture and a thoughtful provision of scarce prim land?
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Jay said on 1:42AM 2-15-2008
Pork should realise that putting up giant prims with pictures of herself to try and scare her neighbors away (probably) so she can buy their land cheaper also falls under this ruling.
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