On Christmas Day I picked-up on comments that the direct messaging capabilities of the profile feeds had apparently been disabled. I heard things by way of Ciaran Laval, who pointed me towards a thread on the forums.

While one poster – Bondboy Dagger – commented on the thread that LL’s support had indicated the capability had been discontinued, I was a little cautious in stating this to be the case because my.secondlife.com has been subject to more than a few problems of late – as many of us who still are unable to post snapshots to our feeds can testify.

As news spread, so did the speculation that it may be down to scammers abusing the system with offers of cheap rates for buying L$.

In my original article, I promised to drop Pete Linden, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications a line and ask him for an official comment – although as I explained at the time, it would be unlikely that any answer would be forthcoming until the new year as Pete was out-of-the-office enjoying a well-earned break (and I actually forgot to send the mail at the time – it was left stranded in my DRAFTS folder *cough*).

Anyway, Pete is back in the office today, and did drop me a short reply to my question about the service being discontinued on account of misuse, which reads in full:

Hi Inara,

On this inquiry, I can confirm that yes, as a result of a rise in abuse of the system, we have turned off the direct message function on My.SecondLife.com profiles.

Best,

Peter



So there you have it. The capability has indeed been disabled. Whether it might be re-enabled in the future remains to be seen.

My thanks again to Pete for his reply.