Avatar cops and virtual AVO's
Corporations, whether they are within the real world or a virtual world, have responsibilities that extend beyond the level of the anonymous individual.
The corporation has a responsibility, for example, to ensure that its staff are not exposed to inappropriate speech, harassment or intimidation.
Again, there are no laws to prevent this occurring on Second Life.
Walls said that when asked who is responsible for online security, generally organisations look to the IT department.
"But what does IT know about crowd control? Or fixing physical graffiti on a virtual asset? These are not things that IT thinks about."
Telstra employs its own support staff (at least two full-timers) to log-in to the virtual world and "look after the visitors".
At any one time, Romney said, there are several Telstra employees on the virtual island "at a minimum".
These staff do end up having to act as security guards at times. Romney said Telstra tries to be "even-handed" about security on its islands, but "where we are alerted to offensive behaviour or harassment, we intervene to prevent it. The buck ultimately stops with us".
Equally, an organisation has very few ways of being able to control who enters its virtual presence -- and may find it difficult to stop some other avatar distracting potential customers that are interacting within it.
Moon said the AIIA, which plans on having board meetings within its virtual presence, has never experienced such a problem during the informal meetings it has held to date.
"But could it happen? Yes. Most people who come to our space do so by invitation, but other people can wonder in."
"In the case of a board meeting, we would have to ask them to leave," she said. "It's an interesting thought -- we might need avatar police or virtual AVO's!"
Other virtual options
Walls said there are more targeted versions of virtual worlds (alternatives to Second Life) which may prove more beneficial to corporations in terms of managing risk.
Some offer private virtual worlds, where the corporation merely buys the utilities and software necessary to build its own virtual world to use for communicating internally or with approved participants.
"It's very early days, similar to the early days of the Web," Walls said. "Organisations are testing out new business models. Like the Web, the good models will survive, the bad ones won't."
"If organisations think they can just use it as an advertising space, they need to look closely at what Second Life is all about. You have to understand why people are going into virtual worlds and what they are doing in that world."
14%
7%
