If I'm reading this correctly, what you're saying is that you'll create a bot (i.e. an SL avatar/account), then people will pay a vendor and you'll give them access to the bot/SL account login information.

Seems to me that's a violation of the SL TOS, and as such would be dangerous for you and anyone "buying" the account from you.

3. ACCOUNT REGISTRATION AND BILLING
3.1 You must establish an account to use Second Life, using true and accurate registration information.

You must establish an Account with Linden Lab to use the Service, except for those portions of the Websites which Linden Lab allows users to access without registration. You may establish one or more additional Accounts, provided that your existing Account is in good standing and you are otherwise in full compliance with this Agreement. You may not transfer or assign your Account and its contractual rights, licenses and obligations, to any third party without the prior written consent of Linden Lab.

I still think you may be in some potentially dangerous territory, as the Third Party Viewer Polict states :

You must not use or distribute features or functionality that transmit Second Life usernames or passwords anywhere except to Linden Lab servers. Third-Party
Viewers must not retain a user’s username or password anywhere except on the user’s own system.

It seems to me that if you're going to offer hosted services, the username/password would need to be retained on YOUR system, which is clearly not "the user's own system". Linden has banned other hosted services before and I suspect you'd risk the same. I can't speak for Luke, but I also suspect he may have an issue with your use of the Metabolt name on a hosted service, potentially putting his product at risk.

Please understand, I'm not trying to be difficult.. you ask for questions/comments regarding your service. I'm just sharing my thoughts on the potential challenges you face... and as for how much people are willing to pay, I wouldn't use the service as I see too much risk to my accounts.

Just my 2L

The Rent-a-Center analogy is only valid if your box is going to be in my home, as that's where the Rent-a-Center PC would be. I'd have control of it as long as I paid.... Is that the level of service you're proposing? If not, and the database storing the username/password is at your location, under your control, then at the moment you use that information to login to SL, the account is effectively being shared and is again a violation of the TOS.

As long as the METAbolt licensing condition below is met we have no issues with this service/product or any other for that matter:



Source: http://www.metabolt.net/bsd.aspx

Any other legality and compliance etc including or not including the SL TOS is between the service/product provider and Linden Labs and has abosultely nothing to do with METAbolt and is outside our interest & responsibility in every shape, form or condition.

I will be looking into this service from a technical perspective to understand it more, once I can find the time from my busy RL and METAbolt devlopment life

It should be noted and clear that I have had a discussion regarding such a service with Bioblaze in the past (many months ago) and provided few ideas and pointers. This does not and should not mean this service is supported, promoted, sponsored or in any way affiliated with METAbolt. From my understanding it has been developed and is owned by Bioblaze Payne.

As I said above, as long as the METAbolt licensing stated above is observed and Linden Labs are happy with this service/product, we have no issues with it at all.

:) this is excellent news. I like your product and the idea. Everyone gets treated equally here and we need more information on exactly how this product works and what it does. Convince me and you will have my FULL support. I guess this is fair.

Thx

P.S. I have not seen this product. I have spoken to Bioblaze in SL regarding METAbolt standards/rules. METAbolt does not charge for this...we are not here to make money out of METAbolt. I know now that he is working on getting my requests right which is in accordance with the SL TOS and TPV policy. The Linden first line support is not good enough for me and means nothing and I primarily want to see that the METAbolt user's security is not exposed in anyway and no user information is stored on this service's systems and that full user details are exposed to Linden Labs upon every login as per the TPV policy.

Obviously these are only required if you want METAbolt approval. Other than that it is a free world and you can do as you wish and we can't stop anyone unless our copyrights are broken.

I would be interested in this if the price and service are right.

A suggestion I would like to make is I would rather have access to metabolt settings outside of SL (i.e. from a web browser, or even better remote desktop which would give you access to the full metabolt console) rather than inworld.

I'm also presuming you aren't providing any way to access chat, object manager etc if it's all done through an inworld object? I would need more details of what you are actually providing, ideally even a demo, and also details of the system you are using for the hosting before I could decide its value to me.