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Opt-out is good, and everybody understands the general concept. The question is: what's the best way of doing that opt-out mechanism in SL? We (SLBrowser) could provide and maintain a list of opt-outs. That will work for *us*, but won't solve the problem of "boting" in general. Quite honestly, we're not interested in quick-fixes. On the Web, that is solved in general with robots.txt -- a file that all bots, independent of who writes them, should honor.

The other issue is what's the granularity of opting-out. Should it be account-based, like you suggest? (i.e. all objects owned by a certain avatar) Or parcel-based? (i.e. all objects in a parcel) Or both? What will the language look like? What are the best identifiers, given that keys change when objects are deleted and rezzed again? Where should the interface to this be? On the Web (in what server?)?, inworld? on the sim server protocol? Etc. etc.

Anyway, this issue is impossible to avoid, as more and more people start writing their own clients to interface with the SL sims. We'd like to play a part in defining that protocol, because we don't want to step on anyone's privates (metaphorically and literary). Plus, the less unwanted (noise) objects we index, the better search will be. We really don't want to list stuff that is accidentally on sale in someone's bedroom.

I'm not sure anyone is listening, though. The topic of bots seems to provoke strong negative reactions from very vocal people who scare everyone else, when it is, in fact, a technical issue that needs to have a technical approach as SL opens up. One of the consequences of opening up is precisely the ability for people to write their own clients. Let's move on, shall we? The next question is: what's the best mechanism to deal with bots' potential for intrusion, invasion of privacy, and disruption? The answer for this will necessarily be part technical and part legal. Neither of it is done for SL, yet.