Engaging in a virtual world might seem as if it is disconnected from our non-virtual activities.
This separation is not as strict as it may seem. Often, you will experience spill-overs from one world into the other: You might discuss the experiences you made within Second Life with your friends in the physical world, or you might meet up your offline friends within Second Life. It is necessary to consider which implications arise from our engagement inherent in a virtual environment, because there are both considerable opportunities and risks inherent in this kind of
engagement. To illustrate the major points, we will use examples mostly taken from the virtual world of Second Life, but also a number of online multi-player games or web services.
One of the main issues in virtual encounters is privacy: Most online services require their users to identify themselves with a wide set of personal information ranging from email address, to postal address, to age. In many cases (like a premium Second Life account) credit card registration is also required. While in many cases no problems arise from giving out this information, users often have to give up a significant level of control over their own personal information, as the end user license agreement of many services requires exactly this: That way,it is common practice for companies to gain the right to use their users’ data for commercial use,i.e. to customize advertisement.But privacy concerns do not end there. Even more risk lies in the social networking character of many services that enable virtual interaction. Many Web 2.0 services implicitly award their users for publishing very personal – sometimes even intimate – information, ranging from their location to personal preferences. As Second Life also encourages (and lives off) our interactions with other users, we constantly give information about ourselves to both the company Linden Labs and to other users. As we usually do not have reliable information about these other users’identities (see the chapter about trust and virtual identities), we can not be sure about the way this information is used, or will be used in the future.
This of course does not mean that you should be afraid of sharing information with other people within Second life linden. However, it is important always to be aware of what kind of information you are sharing with whom, and not to give out personal information to people who you do not personally know.
