As Virtual Worlds Grow in Commerical Importance, Do They Need a Police Force?

 Virtual worlds are changing how we do business, but they're not without pitfalls. As one Chinese government official found out, doing business in virtual worlds still involves a fair amount of risk.

The official is urging other law enforcement agencies to take virtual world offenses seriously. But why?

Pixels and Policy takes a look at why one of the world's most virtually-involved nations is awash in virtual criminal activity, and why police officers are struggling to adapt old law to virtual situations.

60 Million Potential Threats

As of 2008, nearly 60 million Chinese were involved in some way with online gaming, and the value of online gaming to the Chinese economy is growing even faster.

According to industry estimates, the value of Chinese online gaming has nearly doubled over the past three years - from $1.6 billion in 2007 to over $3 billion estimated for 2010. That's a huge amount of electronic commerce, and the survival of this revenue stream depends on keeping players and virtual worlds safe from hacks, scams, and illegal activity.

Unfortunately, Chinese Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu also seems willing to shutter investigative reporting as he urges police to take a stronger regulatory stance on virtual worlds:

Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing-based lawyer who has made his name by closely watching the Web and being active in human rights cases, said Meng's remarks show the central government, especially police authorities, have fully realized the double-edged effects of the Internet.

"On one side, the remarks show police will pay more attention to, and better collect, online opinions. Ideally, this will lead to better settlement of problems exposed online," he said."However, a closer police watch could also mean stricter control over online expressions, which goes against universal practice," he said.

Police are acting properly if they use departmental resources to investigate a claim that someone may be using a virtual world to launder money or exploit a bug that can produce a game currency readily convertible to real-world coinage.

There is, however, a careful balancing at when it comes to regulating the actions of millions of virtual users. As a jumping-off point, it would seem prudent to restrict the actions of real-world law enforcement to virtual worlds that allow the conversion of game currency into real-world money.

This both focuses resources on worlds where there is a ready market capable of manipulation and respects the authority of a closed-economy developer to deal with black-market virtual goods as they see fit.

Involving law enforcement in every aspect of virtual worlds breaks down the difference between a violation of the Terms of Service or EULA and a violation of the law. This is bad precedent to set, and virtual law enforcement should be restricted accordingly. Considering how unwilling law enforcement is to give up power in areas where it is utilized, it may also harm virtual worlds on the whole to allow too vigilant a police presence. We're already seeing the effects of virtual worlds where players' actions can be monitored by law enforcement - a recent drug bust made possible by World of Warcraft is only the most public example.

World of Policecraft

According to a recent report from Mashable, drug dealer Alfred Hightower managed to evade Indiana police for some time. He success at dodging the law ended, however, when law enforcement officials thought to check Hightower's favorite game - World of Warcraft - for any sign of the fugitive.

From the article:

After finding out Hightower was a WoW fan, Roberson sent a subpoena to the game’s maker, Blizzard Entertainment. With the information they sent back, Roberson was able to pinpoint the perp’s location.

Aside from being a happy ending for law enforcement and just desserts for the fugitive drug dealer, this situation raises interesting legal questions that we're likely to see much more of going into 2010. When Blizzard tracked Hightower, his usage history revealed he'd fled the country. Extradition proceedings are in order to get Hightower back to Indiana, but the interactions between Indiana police and California's Blizzard are fascinating.

Here's what's interesting: According to legal research and attorney Robert G. Scofield's legal resources, subpoenas issued by one state to another state are normally legally invalid. Roberson's subpoena, then, was more of a friendly request for information. Blizzard had no legal obligation to provide any of Hightower's information to the Indiana police.

Now there's little expectation of privacy when playing online games, as some users have learned, but how far does traditional law enforcement power reach into online games? Can World of Warcraft users now expect Blizzard to voluntarily comply with out-of-state subpoenas even if they have no legal obligation to respond? And how much information can consumers expect Blizzard to divulge?

In order to maintain a sense of immersion and to respect the gamer's right to privacy, it seems fair to restrict law enforcement's presence in virtual worlds to dealing only in cases where there is a real-world financial impact. Scamming fantasy items or exploting glitches should remain the specialty of developers and game moderators. But in cases where trademarked products are copied without remorse, or where a law enforcement agency obtains a warrant (the Blizzard example), the waters are murkier.

How can law enforcement best be integrated into online games to ensure players who invest time and money in their enjoyment don't find themselves facing monetary setbacks due to unscrupulous players?

Comments

[Hiro]

Law enforcement officers requesting information from Blizzard seems no different that asking the phone company for phone records. I know there are some FCC regulations regarding phone companies and availability of emergency and police services, but I don't know the specifics, and where "complying with the law" ends and "willingly cooperating with the law" begins. I wonder WWBDD? (What would Ben Duranske Do?)

[Doug V.]

Tons of realife state and federal laws that deal with issues of companies offering/advertising/and marketing services and goods that serve consumers.

Every player joins a service under a TOS. Every company offers one AS A GUIDELINE. And every citizen has the rights to contact legal officials if the company or another customer is using the companies product or service to harm them either financially or bodily.

The issue of cross country customers now typical in online MMO's means international laws and treaties are now more likely going to come into play and that local disputes may now find themselves international in scope due to the "removal" of geolocation now common in the WWW based world.

Postal and Telephone regulations on an international scale are the area that will need the most review.