Eve TOS Quick Thoughts

A few bullet points here.

• Nothing about this is new. The line “No player may use the character name of another player to impersonate or falsely represent his or her identity.” really has been in the EULA for approximately forever, and the argument that it extends to claiming you are another person (and that that, in turn, extends to alts) is, in that context, a reasonable reading of the rule.
• That said, no, I’m not getting banned for simply claiming on an alt that I am mynnna. I almost certainly will have no action taken at all. Everything I’ve read seems to indicate that malicious intent would be required, eg Chribba creates an alt and claims to be Chribba on that alt, and uses the trust built up as Chribba to scam people in an effort to get in on the fun without tarnishing his good name.
• Rental scams, spying, awoxing, and so forth are not “dead” and if you think so you should probably…unsub…yourself. Same goes for the “START OF A KINDER GENTLER EVE” crowd. You can continue to rental scam (unless you’re a goon), you just can’t claim you’re another person while doing it (or do it on behalf of an entity you’re not a member of.) You can continue to spy as all you’re misrepresenting is that you’re a member in good standing of your target; “What you are” not “Who you are”. Awoxing continues to be fine, just don’t go claiming “I’m X’s cyno alt” to get in. As a late update, “stealing 60b in TEST couriers” is fine, the guy only ever claimed to be himself and the rules don’t say “You can’t misrepresent yourself as some platonic ideal of a player.”
• The 90% or so of the game’s population that seemingly never reads anything ever will continue to be oblivious and you’ll continue to be able to break the EULA to scam them. The remaining 10%, you’ll have to be slightly more clever for.

So, really, I know we’re all eve players and childish overreactions is what we do, but let’s get away from the childish overreactions, shall we?

All that said, I don’t actually like the new/not new interpretation. If I’m on one character, claiming to be another, it’s pretty easy to verify whether I am what I claim. So if I’m logged into mynnna and I manage to convince you that I’m Vince Draken and I can rent out all of Scalding Pass to you (at least without inviting “Vince Drakon” to the convo to “confirm” my credentials), then my reward should be all your isk and a hilarious story, not a petition. And likewise, if I’m on my alt and claim I’m myself and use my trusted position to scam you, my reward should be all your isk and a ruined reputation… not a petition.

So, tl;dr in no specific order: the “new” interpretations are not new, aren’t some radical interpretation in context, I don’t really like the context and think it should be changed if possible, and stop being ignorant exaggerated shitdicks about it.