Chat relay Herald

Asked:

"Is it a breach of TOS for to relay a SL conversation to you?"

I did a tiny bit of research. I'd already posted some of this. Second Life's Community Standards says, among other things:

"Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited."

So Linden Labs prohibits copying conversation to me without consent under this "disclosure" rule. It used to be stricter, then looser, now this. In practice, the Lab does not seek out infractions; they only respond to complaints. Then, if evidence is present, they may issue warnings, suspension or expulsion for repeated malfeasance.

Federal and most state laws do not support this policy: non-confidential information is not required to be held in confidence by either party. Your conversations in SL even if held in Encoded IM, are registered in the SL servers, so federal privacy laws cannot apply. The Lab opted for a stricter policy.

Some Residents post in their profiles: "By this line in my profile, you give me consent to post or share any conversation". While this is an interesting legal ploy, I find it distasteful. Never do I see the complimentary post, allowing anyone to post what they say at will. As a solution, when discussing my own personal matters with other residents, I will ask any recipient (regardless of my seeing that line in their profile or not) to maintain confidentiality for my chat with, "Can you keep this to yourself, please?" thus revoking any permissions they may have assumed for themselves.

The Short Answer: Don't re-post.

For absolute legal safety, share nothing (no IM, no group chat, no world chat, no e-mail).

For any public disclosure or quote, get express consent to distribute.
"May I share your remarks with my advisers?" gives limited permission.
"May I quote you?" gives very broad permission.

To refer to a conversation you do not have permission to quote, alter the text to be non-identified or paraphrased, then you are not posting a log.

Yours, Arth.