Linden Lab Official:Mainland policies

Second Life Mainland Policies

The mainland is a Second Life area in which Linden Lab is the estate owner and exercises elevated discretion regarding content and design. Special rules and policies apply to landowners and businesses on the mainland. The Mainland Policies are incorporated into Second Life’s Terms of Service. A violation of these Mainland Policies, therefore, is a violation of our Terms of Service, which may lead to termination of your account without further obligation on our part. The best way not to violate the rules is to know the rules, so please read these policies very carefully.

The term "land" here refers to virtual land: Second Life "land" or "mainland" is not real property—it refers to a limited license as described in the Terms of Service.

Linden Lab strives to maintain the enjoyment of the Second Life virtual world and protect the interests of residents. In that regard, Linden Lab ("Linden Lab," "Linden" or "we") reserves the right without obligation to make the following changes to any mainland parcel or region when we determine that such changes are necessary to comply with our policies and preserve your interests. You understand and agree that we may:

• Change any region’s maturity designation, and require adult content to relocate to the areas within Second Life designated for such content;
• Make changes in the parceling of land, including make available or release more land, enforce minimum parcel sizes, resell or otherwise alter abandoned parcels, and create or revise rules and policies on connecting or dividing regions or parcels of land;
• Alter mainland terrain, including the land’s height, texture of both resident-owned parcels and Linden-owned land, or alter residents’ ability to change mainland terrain qualities. That means we can’t guarantee the nature of the "view" you will have on your land, or what may be contiguous with your land;
• Change covenants and/or rules applicable to certain mainland areas such as zoning. For example, we may apply particular rules to limited areas including restricting types of content, styles or design of virtual items, or limiting the resale of land. "Protected Land" (land that Linden Lab operates and controls which is generally open to all residents) is not guaranteed to remain protected;
• Change a region’s name, including without limitation in cases where multiple regions have the same name, or where a region’s name violates our policies or any third party’s rights;
• Increase or reduce fees, impose new fees, or change the manner in which fees are charged;
• Impose resource limits, including restrictions on the types and number of avatars, prims and scripts;
• Reclaim land no longer supported or held by an account in good standing;
• Enforce or revise limits on types of permissible content, including without limitation our "ad farm" policy, below, and our Maturity Ratings.

In addition, the following important mainland policies apply to protect your uninterrupted enjoyment of your land:

Policy on "Ad Farms"

See About ad farms and network advertisers for the relevant policies.

Policy Prohibiting Land-Cutting

In general residents are welcome to subdivide larger parcels of land that they occupy into smaller parcels. Subdivision is considered "land cutting" when a resident extensively subdivides land into smaller parcels for the purpose of further "renting" or "selling" those parcels — and it is not allowed. Other prohibited land cutting includes subdividing land in a manner that decreases the ability of other residents to enjoy their land, collaborate and/or exercise land-management controls, or in a way that constitutes harassment of another resident. Linden reserves the right to make parcel alternations as necessary to ensure residents’ enjoyment of Second Life. We want to keep Second Life beautiful too.

We therefore may, in our sole discretion, move any parcel of land that is smaller than or equal to 128 sqm where such land is interfering with the enjoyment of a significantly larger parcel of land or region.

Policy prohibiting the misuse of bots (scripted agents)

While we support the use of scripted agents ("bots") in Second Life, we draw the line when it comes to bots that cause an unreasonable load on our systems or on the regions in which they operate, or where their behavior negatively impacts other residents. Misuse of bots is a violation of this policy. Attempting to gain an unfair advantage in the Second Life search tools, including but not limited to the use of bots or camping for that purpose, is a violation of this policy and (for non-mainland estates) of the Terms of Service.

For more information, see Bot policy.