The new and interesting implications of the connected nature of virtual worlds continue to amaze. This was going to happen eventually, but leave it to the British Daily Mail to figure it out first.

The story relates to a British Labour MP named Peter Mandelson who is also the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. According to the article from the Daily Mail, Mandelson announced earlier this week that he would be embarking on a number of initiatives to increase the public relations acumen of the Labour Party on the Internet. One of these initiatives included the use of what the paper is calling the “Mandel-Clone” which would be a digital representation of Mandelson that would participate in virtual worlds.

The unfortunate part is that the Mandel-Clone would not be ready for a number of weeks, enter the technophiles at the Daily Mail. They invented their own Mandel-Clone and toured around Second Life pretending to be Mandelson. They engaged the Mandel-Clone-Clone in a number of activities, including liaising with constituents, real-estate shopping and virtual nude sunbathing. The responses from the people he encountered were varied to say the least.

The story is funny, but does raise some implications. As more people and organizations engage in the uses of virtual worlds for communicating the potential for a malicious impersonations are real. Whether it is unauthorized use of an organization’s brand or impersonating an individual this is not the last time we’re going to see this happen. I doubt its going to be all that different than what we have seen on social networking sites.