Buyer Beware - eBay Security Chief Turns Website Into Arm of the Law

The Nation ^ | June 20, 2003 | Jonah Engle

[gaucho]

Remind me not to use eBay any more...

[lizma]

Caveat venditor.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I can't get worked up about this. E-bay is a wonderful resource, but is also inherently prone to being abused for fraud and trafficking in stolen goods. A very strict privacy policy would quickly turn it into Disneyland for criminals. E-bay's management is eager to help catch the criminals, in order to protect us honest people, and keep the site a safe place to shop. Has anyone produced any evidence of E-Bay handing over information inappropriately? And any company will turn over credit card transaction info with a court order -- how do you think they found those two kidnapped children in Florida yesterday?

[Arkinsaw]

Science fiction writers predicted private corporate law enforcement a long time ago. We are heading toward a weird world.

[Oberon]

Ping for later reading.

[vbmoneyspender]

It would have been nice if the Nation would have asked Ebay about whether Sullivan made the comments he was alleged to have made and, if Ebay acknowledged he did make these comments, whether Ebay stood behind what Sullivan had said.

[Billy_bob_bob]

...says Nimrod Kozlovski of the Information Society Project...

Man oh man, that guy has had a hard life. Imagine going through life with a name like Nimrod Kozlovski.

[gaucho]

And any company will turn over credit card transaction info with a court order -- how do you think they found those two kidnapped children in Florida yesterday?

That's the key phrase - with a court order. EBay will gladly provide this information to ANY LEO who simply faxes the request to them without a court order. If they did this with a court order I would have no problem with it.

[gaucho]

It would have been nice if the Nation would have asked Ebay about whether Sullivan made the comments he was alleged to have made and, if Ebay acknowledged he did make these comments, whether Ebay stood behind what Sullivan had said.

From eBay Privacy Policy
http://pages.ebay.com/help/index_popup.html?policies=privacy-policy.html

Legal Requests.

eBay cooperates with law enforcement inquiries, as well as other third parties to enforce laws, such as: intellectual property rights, fraud and other rights, to help protect you and the eBay community from bad actors. Therefore, in response to a verified request by law enforcement or other government officials relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal activity, we can (and you authorize us to) disclose your name, city, state, telephone number, email address, UserID history, fraud complaints, and bidding and listing history without a subpoena. Without limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and our ability to keep the community free from bad actors, we will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement or other government officials without a subpoena, court order or substantially similar legal procedure, except when we believe in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to: prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss; or report suspected illegal activity. Further, we can (and you authorize us to) disclose your name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email, and company name to eBay VeRO Program participants under confidentiality agreement, as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity.

[longtermmemmory]

I agree. Disclosure should always be with a court order. Otherwise this is wide open to real abuse. What about an officer getting a divorce. (men AND women can go nuts during divorce discovery, not to mention "setup" purchases. saw a case where the wife was caught subsribing to objectionable magazines for her husband to make him look bad.)

A court order creates a paper trail to minimize the potential and the APPEARANCE of potential abuse. A court order means order signed by the judge, none of this clerk of court wishy washy pseudo prodection.

[MattAMiller]

What exactly are you afraid is going to happen? Ebay is a marketplace, I wouldn't expect any anonimity there. In fact I wouldn't use a similar service that guarenteed anonimity, too open to fraud.

[July 4th]

Ebay's starting to suck as much as Paypal.

[Nick Danger]

I would like to alert the many fans of my highly collectable Elvis plates that I will no longer be conducting my sales on eBay.

I figured none of you people out there would ever be able to find out who took your money, but now I find out that eBay will tell the damned cops who I am!

I'm a big believer in privacy, especially for people selling things sight-unseen over a web site. When I put my ads up there offering my guaranteed, absolutely genuine Elvis plates, the last thing I want is for somebody to be able to find me afterwards. It's all about the Constitution and freedom. Yeah John Adams! Yeah Thomas Jefferson! And phooey on eBay. Thank you. Thank you verra much.

[Sunnyvale CA Eng.]

I can't get worked up about this. E-bay is a wonderful resource, but is also inherently prone to being abused for fraud and trafficking in stolen goods. A very strict privacy policy would quickly turn it into Disneyland for criminals. E-bay's management is eager to help catch the criminals, in order to protect us honest people, and keep the site a safe place to shop. Has anyone produced any evidence of E-Bay handing over information inappropriately?

I have often felt that Ebay had or could become the international stolen goods fencing operation for many people. I wonder if Ebay would turn over sales info to the IRS if the IRS wanted to troll for people running a tax free business. I would not be surprised.

I had a cop at my house a few months ago (after we had a break-in) who told us that one of our neighbors had been busted with a house full of stolen goods that he was fencing on Ebay.

[CurlyDave]

eBay's business depends on minimizing fraud. Co-operation with law enforcement is part of that.

Freedom means freedom to cooperate with law enforcement just as much as it means freedfom to confront LE.

In some ways this is like small businesses that give freebies to cops. Not because the cops shake them down, but because increased police presence means fewer holdups and less crime in general.

As a rule, one should assume that any purchase made with a credit card can easily be known to law enforcement. Same for any purchase made on line.

[gaucho]

eBay's business depends on minimizing fraud. Co-operation with law enforcement is part of that.

Let's put this in a different context since the first line of their Legal Requests policy also states that they cooperate with anyone, not just LEO's

eBay cooperates with law enforcement inquiries, as well as other third parties to enforce laws, such as: intellectual property rights, fraud and other rights,

Now, let's assume (hypothetically, I've never sold anything on eBay) that I have a few CD's that I have purchased and over time sold on eBay and the RIAA considers that to be depriving them of their rights to collect royalties on used CD sales (something they are actively trying to persue).

The RIAA decides that they are going to Fax eBay to get a full history on all my transactions claiming that I'm stealing their intellectual property. They now have a listing of the 50 CD's that I have sold on eBay for the past 2 years and decide that they are going to sue me for IP theft. They never had a court order to obtain this information, but because they are the RIAA eBay willingly complied. I never did anything wrong, I only sold some CD's that I purchased at one time or another and those CD's where my property to sell. The RIAA doesn't think so and they sue hoping that I will settle out of court with them (their new tactic). Is this fair? Seems to me like this policy is wide open for abuse.

[CurlyDave]

The ones doing the abusing in your hypothetical example are the RIAA.

As much as I agree that the RIAA is a major pain in the fanny, they are the problem, not eBay. The RIAA could just as easily get the same info by tracking your sales of used CDs.

[gaucho]

The ones doing the abusing in your hypothetical example are the RIAA.

Exactly -- It's not eBay doing the abuse, it's the one's they so freely provide information too. In my example eBay facilitates that abuse. The RIAA would not be able to collect a full history of my past sales otherwise since they wouldn't have been monitoring it.

[Nick Danger]

I think that you are going to have to face the fact that all arguments based on the privacy, convenience, or rights of the seller are going to fall on deaf ears.

eBay is about buyers. So long as eBay has buyers coming to its site, sellers will grin and bear whatever it takes to have access to them.

The biggest threat to buyers, and hence to eBay's continued existence, is con artists and fraudsters hiding amongst the legitimate sellers. It is the nature of the medium that they are going to be vulnerable to that. eBay not only has to weed these people out, it has to make a big show of the fact that it is weeding them out. It has to put up big signs that say "ATTENTION CROOKS: Not here. Don't even think about it." Part of that is to ward off the crooks, but reassuring buyers is every bit as important.

As a practical matter you cannot win this. The customer is always right. The customer is the guy with the money... the buyer. The buyer wants to know that this faceless entity offering goods for sale on a web site is not some crook.

Imagine fBay, the competing site that assures buyers, "All our sellers are guaranteed complete anonymity. You may buy from them with complete assurance that no law enforcement officer will ever be able to find out who they are." C'mon, you wouldn't buy anything there yourself.

By the way, the RIAA has the legal right to do what you described. eBay would have no choice. Thank your CongressCritter for the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which allows copyright owners to hunt you down without a court order.

[MattAMiller]

Why is someone sitting in their home and selling used CDs entitled to more protection than the guy who opens up a used CD store?