Linden Lab Hit By Wrongful Termination Lawsuit

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This post was made public a few days ago and with strong consideration we felt we should share the post as it was released. We at Zoha Islands have no intent to comment or have any opinion in this matter and suggest that our readers refrain as well. Read on.

Linden Lab Hit By Wrongful Termination Lawsuit Alleging Discrimination & Retaliation for Raising Concerns About Its New Payment Service, Tilia

Kavya Pearlman Linden Lab Tilia Lawsuit Second Life

Kavya Pearlman, an award-winning cybersecurity expert, just went public about a wrongful termination lawsuit she filed yesterday against Linden Lab, where she worked last year. A Muslim-American woman of color, Ms. Pearlman alleges the company discriminated against her, and retaliated against her after she raised security concerns related to Tilia, the company’s new payment service which all Second Life users are required to register with by tomorrow.

Ms. Pearlman shared the full text of her legal complaint with me, and it contains a number of highly serious allegations. For instance this passage, summarizing the red flags related to Tilia that she claims she brought up with senior staff:

In the last year of her employment with Linden Lab serving as the Director of Information Security, Kavya Pearlman raised concerns on multiple occasions to her supervisors, top company executives regarding security risks and possible violations of important laws she observed in Linden’s Second Life and Tilia currency program which prohibit money laundering, child pornography, pedophilia, compromise financial and data security, and other related laws.

She goes on to allege that the company did not respond to these issues, but went ahead with Tilia’s launch as scheduled:

 

Instead of looking into Pearlman’s complaints, Linden Lab’s senior officers led a campaign of retaliation against her, painting her as an inept employee who has issues with communication, and ultimately terminating her employment in March of 2019. Linden Lab proceeded with the timely launch of Tilia’s online token currency, and its expansion of the Second Life virtual reality platforms without taking seriously the risks identified in the realm of compliance and security that Pearlman had identified.

I have of course reached to Linden Lab about this lawsuit, and will update this post if they make a public reply. In any case, Ms. Pearlman has posted a summary of her perspective on Twitter, including a key passage which directly connects her allegations to current events.  Link to the start of her tweet thread below:

Obviously this is a highly explosive lawsuit, so I’m going to refrain from making any hasty judgements about it — and highly recommend to readers that they do the same.

Have a great week from all of us at ZI