As Xbox Live chalks up more subscribers (now close to a million) and continues to diversify its lineup with titles such as True Fantasy Online and Dead or Alive Ultimate, Live is getting harder to ingore.

Even the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI for the abbreviated impaired) is paying attention, we now know. Let me go on by saying that this isn't speculation, this is fact. They hope to gain access to Xbox Live servers in order to monitor user activity and create backlogs of conversations.

To make more sense of why Uncle Sam would want to listen to your game of Rainbow Six 3, the experts at Terra Nova, a website run by university professors and industry veterans, have been consulted and have put an academic spin on the latest happenings of online worlds.

For hot legal issues, Terra Nova's Dan Hunter has answers. For this University of Pennsylvania legal studies professor, squabbles over virtual real estate in Ulitma Online and underage prostitution in the Sims Online are evryday news. So what does Hunter think about the FBI on Xbox Live?

"I'm not sure...but they're a suspicious bunch," Hunter says. "Maybe they want to make sure that it's not used for th propagation of bomb making infomation or as a breeding ground for terrorists."

In twists of irony, could M$ and other megacorps end up protection users in privacy issues, as Verizon has done recently by withoholding names of rebellious file sharers?

"This would happen only when the company sees a commercial advantage in doing so", Hunter says. "M$ won't fight the government because they just can't win. The only thing they can do is seek to have the laws changed, and in the current terrorist inspired paranoiac political environment, this is not likely."

Hunter suggests users read the End User License Agreement before signing up and vote with their feet. But he admits that very few people ever read the EULA, and even fewer protest by taking their business elsewhere. In his experience with subscription based online worlds, Hunter has yet to see someone flee because a company sold off private data to marketers or other private actors.

"They don't organize to protest this sort of behavior. In fact, they don't protest at all. They will still play the game even when they know that their data is being collected and sold."

So what if the FBI hears me trash talking in Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow? "I don't think you need to worry," Hunter says. "The Feds trash talk a lot as well. They're used to it."

Source: XBN