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BREAKING: Bonnie Bots Team Meets With Linden Lab, Promises Opt-Out & Masking Features for Second Life Users

Bonnie Bot Linden Lab SL dataAbove: Patch Linden (speaking) with some of the Bonnie Bots dev team (photo courtesy Bonnie Belle)

 

Most everyone involved with Second Life has been avidly talking for days about BonnieBots, a new website tracking genuine Second Life activity, with many SLers enthusing over the depth and value of this data, and others alleging rampant privacy intrusions. (Examples in comments here, and also here.)

 

This morning, it was Linden Lab's turn to talk: Patch Linden, VP of Product Operations, summoned Bonnie and her team* into Second Life itself for a fireside meeting.  After a reportedly pleasant chat, Bonnie tells me the site will be making some crucial changes:

 

"We'll be adding an opt-out to the avatar search and the Top Merchants listings," she explained over Discord. "Avatar search will stay disabled until the opt-out is implemented. Top Merchants listing will have merchant names hidden."

 

Personally I think the latter change deserves some debate. To analogize the virtual world with our offline economy, imagine if we had no way of publicly knowing who the wealthiest people and most successful businesses in the US were.

 

At any rate, some of these changes won't happen immediately.

"The opt-out functionality doesn't have a firm ETA," as Bonnie puts it. "May take a weekend or two to implement, since no-one is working full time on BonnieBots." (When I asked last week, she described the project as a non-profit labor of love for Second Life.)

 

As for the Lindens' perspective of Bonnie Bots:

 

"Honestly they were kind and didn't dictate any changes," Bonnie tells me. Everyone just wants to keep the peace."

 

That includes the Bonnie team:

 

"We've all been following the SL Forum discussion obviously. [Linden Lab] feedback to us was nearly identical to their public statement on the SL Forum. We're encouraged that they seem to enjoy the project."

 

And you can enjoy Bonnie Bots here.

 

Update, 9:15pm PT: Just receive this clarification about Bonnie's "team" from her: "Five people on the team. Just a bunch of friends goofing around. We don't have a business entity, don't have any cash flow, and certainly don't make a profit." 

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58 responses to “BREAKING: Bonnie Bots Team Meets With Linden Lab, Promises Opt-Out & Masking Features for Second Life Users”

  1. Ganymede Avatar
    Ganymede

    Oops! Speaking of data gathering & privacy, etc.
    Has anyone asked LL what kinds of data, or what becomes of the data Legacy/Meshbody gathers whenever its HUD connects to their off-world servers to authorize use?
    If you want to paint a nightmarish picture of your in-world identity{s) being linked to your IP address and subsequently offered up for sale, ponder that circumstance for a while.
    * Maybe I’m overlooking some built-in LL safety protocols. It wouldn’t be the first time I’m sure.

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  2. legalbealge Avatar
    legalbealge

    A personal data breach can be broadly defined as a security incident that has affected the confidentiality, integrity or availability of personal data. In short, there will be a personal data breach whenever any personal data is accidentally lost, destroyed, corrupted or disclosed; if someone accesses the data or passes it on without proper authorisation; or if the data is made unavailable and this unavailability has a significant negative effect on individuals.#Opt out is effective immediatly.
    You have been warned about the legal consequences of the violation of breaching, stealing and displaying personal private data, aka memebership level, gleemed using spyware and made openly public to be abused.
    GAther data by asking fist and remove the full avatar details. Nobody was asked and so far most do not agree with you displaying it all. That is numerical data gathering its spyware use to breach personal data and information privacy. It is against many countries laws and you are subjected to those laws and i hope you non profit status is actually registered and the full details as per law on information harvesting is published asap.

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  3. Chanti Avatar
    Chanti

    These are basically false user account spam and generally unwanted.
    I sure didn’t consent to be tracked by an unknown party.
    I don’t even know what ‘Banana sticker’ means on their site.
    I already opted-out but they’ve already gathered a lot of information on me which makes me displeased.

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  4. Chant Avatar
    Chant

    Added:
    In addition I want to have the choice to share my data if -I- want to. Not being stalked by some creepy braindead AI that feeds back to a source to be picked through by someone potentially making money off of me and I don’t get a lick of it.

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  5. Yeya Avatar
    Yeya

    Second Life is a Virtual World on the internet. With signing up, Linden Labs explains about their TOS (terms of service), Privacy and GDPR. The Lab also announced in 2019 to be a collaborator of Data Privacy Day — an international effort to empower individuals and business to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust.
    Roaming bots in Second Life collect data, thus information about residents on the grid. The data gets collected by ‘other residents’, rather than only the agreement made by Linden Lab and their 3rd parties. If Linden Lab approves of data collecting by other residents. How does Linden Lab seek to ensure that the data is used in a correct way?

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  6. NotMyRealName Avatar
    NotMyRealName

    I was informed that there is no longer an opt out system. Avatar Search is supposedly “removed” (the search, not the data collected), which was the only thing you could opt out of. This is all bad-faith and clearly contemptuous of SL content creators and residents. And LL gives it a pass. This is the beginning of my last days on SL.

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  7. Woner Avatar
    Woner

    Lil new tool to get rid of them
    https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Land-Security-No-Bots-Ban-Bots/24673231

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  8. CoradeCarl Avatar
    CoradeCarl

    I don’t care about the BonnieBots. I rather enjoy the site and data that gets collected. I own over 100 parcels across 52 sims and I have visitor trackers on them so I can see when people land on them. I see Bonniebots land on my lands all the time and they are the only bots that I dont ban. I run a script on my land that has a huge list of bots that get put on the banlist but bonnie is not one of them because she publicly publishes the data and im a bit of a data and numbers nerd.
    I have no problem with BonnieBots or even LouBottin bots (another I dont ban oops) collecting my data. None of the data is RL personal data, its all SL related data. Who cares if my avatar sex, height, mesh body, how much land I own, what groups own them are published.
    I dont get what the big deal is. Your real life name, location, or any details about your real life is not being displayed.
    Get a grip people. Go outside and touch grass sometimes.

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