Second Life charges for real names, increases identity theft risk

By Adam Turner
Thursday, 05 April 2007 07:08

Opinion and Analysis

For $50 a year you'll soon be able to christen your Second Life avatar with your actual name, but Linden Labs seems to be doing little to stop someone else masquerading as you.

The equivalent of vanity plates for your car, customised surnames for avatars should be available by the end of the year and will likely to cost $100 up front and $50 a year, reports Forbes courtesy of Associated Press.

Currently you can choose almost any first name you like for your avatar, but then select from a defined list of surnames. So far only a handful of avatars are named after their actual owners - such as IBM chairman Samuel J. Palmisano and Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards - which have been freebies. By allowing people to use their real name, Linden Labs hopes to encourage more executives, political candidates and other famous people to use Second Life as a virtual soap box.

According to AP; "With the new feature, Linden Research will try to verify that avatars with high-profile names belong to same-named owners. For now, it's nearly impossible to determine the offline identity behind any avatar."

Forget about "high profile" people, don't we all deserve the same level of protection for one of the most precious elements of our identity? Second Life wants to be taken seriously as a place of commerce, and where there's money there's crime. Identity theft will take on a whole new dimension once someone can start running around in Second Life with your name.

Perhaps worse than the risk of financial fraud is the risk to your reputation. What happens when your digital doppleganger gets busted for dodgy business deals, or just stupid behaviour. They can vanish into the ether and pop up with a new name, but you're stuck with a tarnished reputation in both Second Life and the first one.

In the litigious world we live in, Second Life is a giant lawsuit just waiting to happen. By allowing avatars to assume the name of others, Linden Labs is inviting the mother of all lawsuits to come knocking on its door.