SecondLife Bans Unregistered In-World Banks

GuruBuckaroo writes "Virtual Ponzi schemes — pardon, "Banks" — have finally been given the boot by the policymakers at Linden Lab's Second Life. According to the company's latest blog post: 'As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter. We're implementing this policy after reviewing Resident complaints, banking activities, and the law, and we're doing it to protect our Residents and the integrity of our economy.'"

Comments

That should've been done day one.

[Khyber]

LL should have had exclusive control over their currency and the exchange thereof to begin with. Allowing other parties to do this for them was an open invitation for them and their users to get shafted.

Morons.

Re:That should've been done day one.

[archen]

It is however interesting how Second Life started out as this sort of free for all, and more and more it's starting to evolve a government out of necessity. There are many institutions that a person may think are not really needed by society, yet we see that online civilizations seem to reinvent the same things. Also interesting that this "government" has already stomped on people, and people already bitch about it. Seems like second life is getting too much like the first one.

Re:free advertising?

[boristdog]

I have never, EVER, met a person who 'plays' this game, I am probably the only one in my circle who has even heard of it, and I only hear about it here on slashdot.

My sentiments exactly. And I work with hundreds of nerds/engineers/etc.

All of the people I know seem to have first lives.

Re:good time to become a loan shark

[eebly]

First, a minor point, banks don't issue money (they used to but that creates undesireable barriers to trade) and thus making banks adhere to the gold standard is meaningless. Governments make currency standards.

Second, gold doesn't have intrinsic value at all. The value of gold fluctuates all the time. All the gold standard did was fix the price of gold. While the gold standard was tenable for a time it didn't work in the long run because it's not stable. Your money supply is dependent on your gold supply which in turn limits your economy. You can't have more dollars than your fixed ratio to gold. New discoveries of gold can also create deflationary shocks.

There's nothing special about money at all. It's a medium of exchange. It has what value we agree it has, no matter if the medium is a piece of paper or a string of bits or a hunk of metal.