There are currently three different basic ways you can access Second Life account profiles. There’s access via a Web-browser (through my.secondlife.com), access through the officially supported Second Life viewer 2.x (at least the later versions of it), and there’s the basic profile API that’s still used by viewers based on the 1.x series code-base, and earlier versions of Viewer 2.x.
Two of these respect the privacy settings on your profile data. One of them doesn’t. Guess which.
If you guessed the basic profile API, you’d be right. You’ve earned an image of a gold star (don’t make me have to draw one for you, though. Show a little initiative).
Both the Web and non-Web profile systems have some privacy settings (you can selectively conceal group affiliations using the non-Web profile system, for example) – the Web-based profile system (also in use by later versions of Viewer 2.x) has additional privacy settings, as shown here:
Linden Lab has not, however, ever implemented those additional privacy constraints into the basic API that’s used by Viewer 1.x and early versions of 2.x, which just gets and displays all of the data anyway.
With something like two-thirds of Second Life users using viewers that access profiles through the older API, those privacy settings are pretty much moot at present.
Linden Lab has indicated in recent months that it is considering simply switching the old profile API off entirely at some point in the not-too-far-distant future.
In order for the new profile privacy settings to not be misleading (and possibly deleterious), the Lab is either going to have to bite the bullet and implement those privacy features in the old and already-deprecated profile API, or shut down that API entirely, leaving the majority of Second Life viewers without in-world access to Second Life profiles.
Either way it’s a tough call, and I’m glad it isn’t my job to make it.
Making sure I have this correct:
Users of 1.x viewers, while in-world, continue to access the full content of profiles exactly as we have done since SL became SL. We are therefore accustomed to this, and the conscientious among us only include in our profiles that which don’t mind being seen while in-world. We are, however, also able to use the new privacy settings on the web version of our profiles to prevent content from being seen by anyone outside of SL — which, as far as I’m concerned, is the only critical privacy issue.
So… how is this “broken”? And how does the eventual disabling of the 1.x in-world API “fix” it?
“We are, however, also able to use the new privacy settings on the web version of our profiles to prevent content from being seen by anyone outside of SL” and to prevent the most recent versions of Viewer 2.x from seeing content that you’ve restricted with the privacy settings as well.
For newer residents or even long-time residents that are just not too technically ‘informed’, the (apparent) possibility to restrict information to “friends only” might lead them to post sensitive data in their profile, unaware of the fact that this information is in fact accessible by everyone through the deprecated basic API.
@Alexander: In other words, dear Brutus, the fault is not in our API, but in ourselves.
It would be possible to have the deprecated API a wrapper for the new API, or to even just add in a call to check if they’re allowed to do something based on the requester (picks, groups, etc) and just return a dummy group / pick or absolutely nothing.
If LL isn’t doing it, it’s because they don’t want to spend the time / effort / people on it. Or nobody who cares saw the JIRA. Or maybe this will be an excuse to ignore LLUDP profile requests. Who knows.
“might lead them to post sensitive data in their profile, unaware of the fact that this information is in fact accessible by everyone through the deprecated basic API.” – This has already happened.
Managing a busy place using V2 profiles is impossible. It’s very slow, It’s nice white and hugely big and it doesn’t show the profile of all residents.
As a merchant I want to contact a customer. I can not even see if they are on-line.
How odd it might seem, the info about “I want to…” and “I can…” tell much more as some realise, because of that limitation.
It is one of the reasons why people switched from V2 to TPV’s. I doubt the TPV devs would like to offer their userbase a non-functional viewer.
I agree, Privacy settings should be equal to all and for that LL should force other viewers to comply. It is the users wish after all.
But pulling all functionality would be a bad idea.
I think LL has to rethink their original idea. The single option in the viewer (yes that option is still there)(I want my profile to be seen on the web) has been sufficient, should remain being sufficient.
All profiles should remain visible in-world for all.
There’s a fourth way – access the old search results page through the web-browser, like this one.
@Kakurady Ah, of course, the older version 2 Web-profiles.
The whole web profile thing is still very much in a state of flux. Firestorm does not implement the new Viewer 2 web profiles, and will not do so – they’re too slow, they can’t be skinned, and they eat up far too much valuable screen real estate. Until recently, they *also* did not have any ability to have the information just shown to people who had logged into Second LIfe but not openly on the web; this was a recent change.
There’s a complaint you don’t take into account, either. One benefit of the V1 system is that, say, a merchant who needs to send a customer a message – say about a previous purchase that needs an update – can always find that customer’s profile with a search on the exact name. That’s not true with V2 web profiles any more. Worse, a griefer can hide his profile information and be invisible to the AR tools.
Frederik Linden (I think that’s the right spelling) listened to our concerns, and took them back to LL. The result is that an API is being developed to give access to V2 web profile data without having to scrape HTML to get it. Firestorm will use that API once it’s available. LL will not turn off the V1 profile API until the new one is in place.
And then it’s also nice to dig through residents’ dark pasts on this website: http://www.despairingly.com/arduenn-schwartzman.html
[...] Nino posts on a privacy issues surrounding SL web Profiles – or more particularly, the “old” profile API [...]
The “about me” part of the profile should not be hidden totally in the most restrictive setting. At least name and way to contact them should remain open. It’s not just businesses which need this ability. If you need to contact your neighbor about a land issue you need a way to message them. I am sure there are other reasons.
That’s not a tough call. It’s an incredibly easy call, and one that the residents have been telling the lab to make for a long time now:
Dump viewer 2.0 and go back to developing on snowglobe!
It’s simple, easy, it gives the users what they want. I see no downside to dumping viewer 2.0.
@Tateru
Profile & privacy have been an issue since LL opened up the profile data to the Web ! It dates back from 2007, when they implemented the dreaded web search (which, by the way, made me loose 75% of my incomes as a SL merchant…). Since this time, all SL residents profiles have been indexed by Google and other Big Brotheresque search engines. I SCREAMED at LL when they did this, and their only reply (unsuitable for merchant) was “just uncheck the ‘Show in Search’ box in your profile”… Abysmal !
The new privacy settings are actually an improvement for the Web part, since with them, you can prevent Big Brother (the search engines) to index some parts of your profile and reserve them for in-world residents (the latter has always been the case since day One in SL and doesn’t pose any issue as long as you know it).
The fact the privacy settings apply to newer viewer 2 versions is however NOT an improvement: it’s a net feature loss, and I wholeheartedly agree with Lalo Telling, Vick Forcella andTonya Souther arguments for maintaining *full* v1 profile compatibility for viewers of any kind !
The Lab is determined to replace the V1 interfaces with V2 ones. They just announced new, “improved” search functionality, and announced that when it goes live, V1 search will be “impaired”.
Snowglobe is dead, dead, dead. The Lab will not pick it back up. They’ve invested too much money and prestige into Viewer 2 to unceremoniously dump it. If they threw that investment – measured in millions of dollars – away, the Board of Directors of Linden Research, Inc. would be firing management wholesale, and be right to do so.
Those working on V1-based viewers will have to backport V2 APIs into their codebase. That task will only get larger and harder as time goes on.
@Tonya: “… the Board of Directors of Linden Research, Inc. would be firing management wholesale, and be right to do so.”
That would be ANOTHER great benefit of dumping V2! Imagine a LL without arrogant bastards and cliquish private JIRA crap and 30% discounts for LL buddies like we have always had. Imagine the markets that would open up, the bugs that could be fixed! Killing V2 would get rid of a lot of the assholes and fix LL’s other problems.
Bubblesort: Nice try. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t play out that way. It would likely be the beginning of the end of SL, since the firings would likely sweep out the good with the bad, at least from our viewpoint. That’s because they’d be based on business reality, which is only tangentially related, if at all, to the things you complain about.
Since they’re not reliably implementing the privacy system they give you access to, aren’t they on dodgy legal ground anyway?
If somebody gets sufficiently pissed over this, it might be the Lawyers who decide.
“In order for the new profile privacy settings to not be misleading (and possibly deleterious), the Lab is either going to have to bite the bullet and implement those privacy features in the old and already-deprecated profile API, or shut down that API entirely, leaving the majority of Second Life viewers without in-world access to Second Life profiles.”
Or… they could add a note to the effect that the “Friends” setting applies only to those friends using v2 viewers. Or remove the “Friends” setting entirely.
I’d go with removing the “Friends” setting entirely. The whole point of the profile is that it’s public-facing information. Locking it down defeats the purpose.