Legal Aspects of Virtual Identity

A Virtual Identity is the representation of an identity in a virtual environment, consisting of a property of objects allowing these objects to be distinguished from each other. It can exist independently from human control and can (inter)act autonomously in an electronic system. Since the Internet virtual identities (VIDs) are step by step interwoven in (trans)actions of persons but neglected in the law of persons and property. Most people don´t realise that they are using VIDs when entering a marketplace (such as eBay), a chat room, or a dating site. They take for granted that an artificial identity is representing them. Given the emerging use of auction and transaction websites the sometimes public backlash against virtual shapes is not proportional to the daily growing accounts that use virtual identities for social and commercial transactions. This paper describes the legal aspects of virtual identities in the context of virtual environments.