A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday on 3-D virtual worlds. The subcommittee will examine e-commerce in these worlds, including Second Life, and the online safety of children who visit these communities.
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Some House lawmakers on Tuesday deliberately stepped into another realm of existence for a look-see at commerce and safety issues in virtual universes.
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee held a hearing on the increasing popularity of 3-D virtual worlds, such as Second Life, There and Zwinky. The hearing, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, was simulcast on Second Life with a 20-second delay.
In such worlds, users create virtual likenesses of themselves -- called "avatars" -- that live, work and play in computer-simulated communities.
Examining Commerce
The Telecommunications and the Internet subcommittee will focus on several issues, including the online safety of children who populate some communities, such as Zwinky, which is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp. Other issues include how academic, healthcare and other nonprofit groups use such online communities for various activities.
The subcommittee will also examine commerce in sites like Second Life where people spend real money to buy virtual goods. Numerous companies, including IBM (NYSE: IBM) , Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Cnet Networks, have established a presence on Second Life, which now has about 13 million users.
One of those users is Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who chairs the subcommittee and will have an avatar during the simulated hearing.
Sending Avatars to Summits
In December, he sent an avatar to a United Nations climate change summit in Bali to address participants. He spoke in front of a computer at a staffer's home on Capitol Hill while audiences at the summit and on the Internet viewed his avatar.
"This is my first foray into Second Life, but it won't be my last," he said at the time.
Philip Rosedale, cofounder and chief executive of San Francisco-based Linden Lab, which created Second Life in 2003, was scheduled to testify.
Other witnesses included Colin J. Parris, vice president of digital convergence at IBM; Susan Tenby, senior manager at TechSoup, which provides resources to nonprofit groups; and Larry Johnson, who is chief executive at the New Media Consortium, which helps develop technology applications.
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