“Second Life” a Tool for Terrorism? Crazy . . . For Now.

For those of us who practice in the technology law field, one of the most exciting and novel areas is what’s happening in virtual worlds and with “massive multi-player online role-playing games” (“MMORPGs”).  The variety and depth of the legal issues are fascinating, and I’ll do my best to cover them in this blog and on my site.  From a societal perspective, virtual worlds and MMORPGs present a glimpse of where things are headed.  It’s not quite “The Matrix” yet, but stay tuned.  In the minds of many, this is where social networking will be heading sooner rather than later.

There’s a short but interesting article on wired.com regarding Congress’s apparent overreaction about the possibility of Second Life (“SL”)–or any virtual world, for that matter–being used by terrorists to launder funds.  While the article downplays the potential for such abuse given SL’s low retention and transaction rates among users, it misses the point.  Yes, for the moment our government may be overreacting as only a post-9/11 government can.  But its fears are not unfounded even if somewhat overzealous.

First, despite the relatively “unpopulated” nature of SL and other virtual worlds, it’s foolhardy to think that their appeal won’t continue to grow—for both good and bad guys.  As of March of 2008, it’s been reported that SL has 13 million registered accounts.  While many users have more than one account and many accounts are inactive or used infrequently, the fact still remains that virtual worlds and MMORPGs are growing at a phenomenal rate.  One study estimated that this market will increase from $3.4 billion to $13 billion in 2011.  Also even in the absence of such statistics, moving from the margin to the mainstream is the usual trajectory that technology takes.  There’s no reason to think that SL and MMORPGs won’t do the same.  It just takes time.  Furthermore, despite the Wired article’s emphasis on SL’s low retention and transaction rates, there’s a reason that Congress is looking to tax virtual assets and property.  A great deal of real money is being made in the virtual world.  So it’s only logical that the government investigate the criminal implications of using these forums.  They’ll only become more and not less “populated.”

Second, terrorists—despite their evil and depraved nature—are, sadly, quite creative.  It’s naive to think that they won’t be using virtual worlds in the same manner in which they now use the internet, e-mail, or any other technology to recruit followers, disseminate their hate, and devise attacks.  Laundering money may be at the bottom of their list, but it’s probably there.  While virtual worlds will hopefully provide a way to track and monitor such people, these technologies may nevertheless be quite appealing to increasingly savvy criminals who intend to do us great harm.  At least our govenment is asking the right questions.  Time will tell if it arrives at the right answers.

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