actions & events/word of mouse

12

Luciano Floridi

word of mouse

The perils of the swap shop

society (www.swapace.co.uk).

We live in a neo-bartering

On any sterling banknote,

one can still read “I promise

to pay the bearer on demand the sum of...”, but

the fact is that Britain abandoned the gold

standard in 1931, so you should not expect to

receive any yellow stuff in exchange for paper.

The Euro, more seriously, promises nothing.

That might be one of the reasons we are so

reluctant to adopt it in this country.

Since all currencies are free-floating

nowadays, money may well be just a pile

of digits. Indeed, when Northern Rock

collapsed, several banks in the virtual world

Second Life(SL) followed suit. Players rushed

to close their accounts because SL is not

Monopoly: the exchange (technically,

redemption) rate is around L$260 (Linden

Dollar) to $1 (secondlife.com/whatis/economy

market.php).

This is interesting because it transforms

providers of in-game currencies, like Linden

Lab, into issuers of electronic money. And since

the threshold between online and offline is

constantly being eroded, one is left wondering

when some kind of regulation will be extended

to such companies as well. It seems unfair that

no government went out of its way to support

users who lost all their L$.

True, at the moment you cannot swap L$ for

any hard stuff in first life. For this, you need a

Nectarcard (www.nectar.com). In this case, the

neo-bartering nature of the information society

is even more evident. As with all loyalty cards,

one earns points by spending. While the money

spent might not be yours (suppose you drive a

company car and your travelling expenses are

reimbursed), the points are as good as cash: a

DVD from Blockbuster costs only 500 points

(be careful: Sainsbury’s gives you a worse deal)

Clearly, bartering and online swapping are

based on fair rules, trust and honesty. But we

live in a sad valley of cheaters, where the

neologism swaplifting(swapping + shoplifting)

is becoming popular. The simplest scam is to

agree to a swap and then disappear without

honouring your side of the deal. There are,

however, slightly less elementary ways of

playing the system.

Suppose you buy a product for £1,000,

register the 2,000 points on your Nectar card,

then return the object purchased and get a full

refund. You just made the equivalent of 4

rented DVDs (approximately £16) at no risk, as

it is unlikely that the points will be reclaimed.

tpm3RD QUARTER 2008