You are here: Back in 2007 we wrote about how police had arrested a kid for "stealing" virtual furniture in the virtual world, Habbo Hotel. At the time, we pointed out how problematic it is when real laws (and real police) cross over into virtual worlds. What if "stealing" is a part of the game? Even if it's not, it seems like these are cases where the folks who run Habbo Hotel should handle it via terms of service issues, rather than getting the real police involved. If virtual items are "stolen," then Habbo should be able to give them back. That's one of the nice things about a virtual world where there is no scarcity and where there's the ability to bring "stolen" things back.
However, it looks like that's not happening any time soon. A bunch of folks have sent in the habbohotel coins news that the Habbo Hotel folks have now asked Finnish police to investigate 400 cases of "theft" in their world. Seriously. Of course it is a bit more complicated than that. They're really upset about phishing scams that let scammers get users login information, which they then use to get into their account and transfer the virtual goods away. But that's not really "theft" and it's a misnomer to call it that. And, really, if Habbo Hotel users are getting phished so frequently, perhaps the Habbo developers should focus on building a better login system that is not so susceptible to simple phishing habbo credits scams...
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