(Originally published on SLNN.COM)

Philip Linden, Glitteractica Cookie, Larry Pixel and Colin Parris testify before Rep. Ed Markey’s House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

WASHINGTON – Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), known in Second Life as EdMarkey Alter conducted hearings for the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet entitled “Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium.” The four witnesses were Philip Linden, Glitteractica Cookie, Larry Pixel and Colin Parris.

The hearing took place both in Washington as well as in Second Life. Rep. Markey started off by noting many of the great benefits that Second Life brings. He spoke about Wilde Cunningham, an avatar created by disabled people from a center in Massachusetts. He spoke about the use Second Life by groups like the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and The American Cancer Society (ACS) as well as the business potential of Second Life.

However, he noted that Second Life raises many important policy issues. They surround topics like consumer protection and personal privacy. In specific, he expressed concerns about banking, gambling and child protection.

He used the hearings as an opportunity to stress the importance of broadband deployment across the country; addressing concerns about the digital divide and for keeping internet access open.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) noted that Chevrolet had space in Second Life where car buffs could speak with Chevy representatives and noted IBM’s use of Second Life. He said that Congress needs to be vigilant about crime in virtual worlds, particularly fraud and sexual predators. At the same time he expressed a hope that virtual worlds could flourish without over-regulation.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) who describes her Congressional Website as a Virtual Office had some of the best comments. She observed that many people may wonder if Members of Congress live in some sort of virtual world, based on the way they fly in and out so quickly. She also noted that she suspected that the real reason the subcommittee was holding the hearing was so that Rep. Markey could find how to get past the seventh level of World of Warcraft. However, she noted, you only get two experience points being at the hearing. On a more serious note, she expressed concern about the possible use of Second Life by terrorists as noted in recent news reports. That said, she did advocate censorship.

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) noted that his children played Runescape, but expressed concern about the work avatar coming from a Hindu or Buddhist god’s name. Rep. Eshoo (D-CA) couldn’t help but think of the phrase “get a life”. She noted that social networking was once outside of the mainstream and now was part of the mainstream and pondered if the same would apply to virtual worlds. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) noted the importance of Second Life to education and then expressed concern about protecting children online and about the addictive nature of Second Life.

Rep. Michael Doyle (D-PA) noted that tomorrow is World Autism Day. He spoke about autistics.org and particularly their link to the http://slurl.com/secondlife/Porcupine/37/185/105/ >Autistic Liberation Front on Second Life. In terms of the ongoing battle of Internet bandwidth, he suggested that instead of asking how we manage limited bandwidth, we need to ask how to get more bandwidth.

With all of the initial comments out of the way, Philip Linden was given the opportunity to make comments. He spoke about how Second Life isn’t a game, it’s a community and the next evolutionary stage of the Internet. He noted a study by Gartner group claiming that by 2011 80% of Internet users will be in virtual worlds.

Mr. Linden then presented a video about Second Life. While the video itself is not currently available online, you can watch the video at the House Energy and Commerce Committee website.

After the remaining witnesses had their opportunities to make brief comments, the members of Congress had opportunities to ask the witnesses various questions about Second Life. Rep. Markey asked about the 70% of Second Life Residents that came from beyond the United States and what role broadband penetration had to do with this. Mr. Linden noted the importance of broadband in the adoption of Second life.

Concerns were expressed over the possible use of Second Life by terrorists and Mr. Linden noted that every transaction over US$ 10 was reviewed by Linden Lab. Given pattern recognition procedures fraud and money laundering can be detected this way. In response to other questioning, it was suggested that the community nature of Second Life would make it more difficult for terrorists to organize in Second Life than it would be for them with other Internet based media.

Rep. Stearns asked why Mr. Linden was stepping down as CEO. Mr. Linden spoke about his desire to focus on design instead of management. Rep. Stearns and others expressed concerns about how age verification was being handled.

Mr. Pixel was asked about the possibility of students becoming addicted to Second Life and questions were asked about whether or not Linden Lab should consider ways of trying to control the amount of time that people use Second Life. Mr. Linden noted that different people can use Second Life for different amounts of time without it being addictive behavior depending on the tasks they were attempting to complete.

Various reports and Linden Lab employees gathered in the Rayburn Overflow room. One person suggested that perhaps getting students addicted to education wasn’t such a bad thing.

Perhaps not. Jeremy Braver, President/Founder of Gaming and Learning in Second Life watched the hearings with two of his eighth grade classes. The students were engaged and interested in the hearings. They asked questions and some even remained after class to continue watching and ask additional questions.

Mr. Braver summed up the experience nicely by observing, “My hope is that this is the beginning of a conversation and sparks decisions towards supportive legislation to benefit the global community's usage of 3D spaces.”