A Taxonomy of Virtual Work

Millions of people worldwide entertain themselves orsupplement their incomes-or both-by meeting withfellow employees as avatars in virtual worlds such asSecond Life, solving complicated problems on websites likeInnocentive, or casually "clicking" to make money forsimple tasks on Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk. Virtualwork has great promise- increasing efficiency by reducingthe time and expense involved in gathering workers wholive great distances apart,and allowing for efficient use ofskills so that the whole is truly greater than the sum of itsparts. At the same time, virtual work presents its ownunique series of challenges, and regulation is needed toensure that the end result is not virtual sweatshops. Someof the questions that virtual work raises are: How mightthe minimum wage laws apply to new forms of work, suchas crowdsourcing, where work is broken down to smallcomponents?

How could virtual worlds help us to test theamount of unconscious bias that exists in hiring? Howwill unions use virtual worlds, and as happened in the2007 IBM Italy "virtual strike," are more virtualindustrial actions yet to come? Other issues discussed inthe Article include virtual work approaches towhistleblowing, harassment, and disability law. Whilestill nascent, these legal issues are of concern to employeesand employers alike, and in light of that fact, it isappropriate to begin formulating well-thought outapproaches to address them.