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Ebay Seeks Federal Assistance In Banning User
stubob writes: "CNN.com reports in this article that Ebay wants a federal judge to ban a user for life for 'using foul language and flouting its own attempts to ban him.'
Ebay's defense is that he is 'disrupting the normal course of conduct.' This could be a great precedent, for /. at least, and maybe would give someone incentive to go after spammers (or even phone solicitors.)" Being that Ebay is a private, voluntary enterprise, isn't this a bit like asking a federal judge to keep the neighbors' dog out of your yard? Sounds like the user has already been banned -- by Ebay. Perhaps what they really want is a restraining order?
Continually reestablishing accounts under false identities is patently bogus, and all E-bay is doing here is loading up the "contempt of court" gun on this guy. If he comes back again, the courts can throw the book at him. What other option does E-bay have???
Descrimination based on sex, race, or other criteria is already covered under the law in various jurisdictions (some cover sexual orientation, others do not). This has nothing to do with this case...
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They're not asking "the government" to ban the guy, they're asking a federal judge. Probably because they're in one state and he's in another. And what they're seeking is probably injunctive relief. Legislative action at the federal level can't be directed against individuals, since the constitution forbids bills of attainder.
I dunno. It's clear that SOMETHING must be done to raise the signal to noise ratio back to what it used to be. After all, Slashdot's trolls are not simply J. Random Idiot crossposting as much crap as they can across usenet.
Have a look at the multiple incarnations of the "inchfan" hidden forums for instance. The trolls here have mounted a deliberate, organised, campaign of attack and disruption against slashdot. These aren't your standard usenet idiots, these are a much more insidious form of troll.
Perhaps the answer is to have the community itself do the policing. Rather than have a fiat handed down from Taco, Hemos, or any of the other editors (or in the case of eBay, whoever's in nominal control), the community could easily decide for ITSELF who is unredeemingly disruptive.
Consider, we already have a karma system (and eBay has feedback) set up to filter the good posts to the top, and allow readers to bypass the trolls, astroturfers, first posters, "goatse.cx"'ers, gritsers, portmans, "steve woston"s and other miscelaneous crap. It should be relatively simple to establish a final, negative threshold beyond which it can be safely assumed that the troll in question has no redemming value. The script could automatically generate a notice to Andover's (or eBay's) legal team to lay down the restraning order on Slashdot's attackers.
(Before anyone mentions the ability to post as anonymous coward, let me remind you that ACs are anonymous because
The community itself would, therefore, be making the decision, rathar than having it handed down by fiat. All Andover (or eBay) would have to do with the process would be to file the restraning order paperwork itself... no policing of their own.
john
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Seems that this is pretty close to the textbook definition of harassment. I would hope that we as entities in "cyber-space" could get a restraining order against a harassing user. IRL wouldn't you be a little concerned if you had had to remove someone from your personal property 40-45 times. After all the goverments main role is protection of its customers (both we the people and we the companies), so this seems like a classic example of why the government exists. Just because the offense took place on the internet does not mean the offense didn't happen (or that the goverment is censoring the internet when stoping it). After all why do you pay taxes everyday if not to have a hand in stoping people like this?
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
You have to consider the fact that it's not just some guy at eBay who thinks the person is annoying and wants to have them banned..
eBay, being a company with lots of customers, has to consider the feelings of those customers. While the actual eBay staffers may not have any problem whatsoever with 'profane abusive language', some vocal portion of their customers apparently do. I agree with you that it's stupid to get upset over the simple use of a word, but there are alot of stupid people out there and as a commercial enterprise, eBay has to worry about the idiots as well as the intelligent.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
The other side to the issue is that eBay has clearly tried to remove the user with no success. Is the government going to have any more luck?
Injunctive relief can be very effective, since one violation and wham! you're in jail. No trial, no delay (at least initially). It's being used against youth gang members for just this reason.
I know nothing about the particulars of this case, but maybe the real target is his ISPs. I've known a few people who redefined what it meant to be an "asshole," but their ISPs made a deliberate decision to not get involved. (The fact that "taking no action" is still taking an action never occured to them.) Note well that quick research showed that this was something like their 23rd ISP in two years, so it's not a case where this ISP was just trying to avoid a knee-jerk reaction.
We all agree that the better ISPs will always ask to see a court order before yanking someone's access. Perhaps this is what it requires - a federal court saying that eBay has the right to evict people for life, and any ISP that offers him sanctuary *will* answer to that court.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I know many people who feel the same way. The line of reasoning goes something like this: "If the guy's a criminal, he's a drag on society. Society as a whole should not have to deal with people contantly trying to destroy their work. If a person lives his life by stealing the hard work of others, then eliminating that life provides a large benefit to society, without any loss. Therefore the police and courts should be able to step in and end the lives of these people".
It's a little harsh, but there's just enough reason in there to make many people stop and think. Many weeds survive by choking the life out of flowers and beneficial plants, so when we get weeds in our garden we rip them out of the ground and destroy them so that the flowers can thrive. If people decide that they want to be societies weeds, why not do the same thing?
I don't totally subscribe to this line of thought because of the potential for abuse, but I can somewhat understand the reasoning of people who do. Not all human life is "special".
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
It seems like this is the question that the courts will have to decide. Is eBay considered a public or private place?
r onics store found out that they cannot ask petitioners to leave since they fall under the same category as a mall; for selling more than one "category" of goods.
At first it seems like a no-brainer. However, from my experience with petitioning, I have learned that small differences create large distinctions.
For instance, if I want to petition in front of a grocery store, I have to ask permission because it is considered to be a private area. On the other hand, I can petition at any mall because they are considered public (since they sell more than one type of item or something like that).
A local chain (Fred Meyer) which is a combination grocery/hardware/clothing/toy/garden/office/elect
So... Is eBay a bunch of classified ads? Or a flea market?
Since it's a private company, it should be allowed to ban any user it wants.
And indeed, that's exactly what eBay did. They did ban him, but he apparently then came back on the system no less than 45 times under different user names. I guess in the end eBay got fed up with this bozo and decided the only sanction he might listen to was a legal one. Some people just don't know when to give up and go home.
Sailing over the event horizon
I run a website and a little bit ago ran into problems with a kid posting idiocy to the Phorum message board (though I was secondary to his main target of annoying another b-movie website). Imagine ten postings that say nothing more than "F**k this, f**k that, bwhahahaha." He was an AOLer so I used AIM to contact him one night. Little brat sat there bragging about being able to annoy people with impunity. It's infuriating to encounter someone who has no respect for others when they think they can get away with it. Being a rather large Marine I'm certain he wouldn't act that way to my face, but over the Internet he feels free to be a bastard.
Sent complaints to AOL to get his account canceled, but he soon made a mistake by using a school (Jr High) computer to make his postings. After that it was very easy to contact the network admin with the IP address info and suddenly he became a very apologetic little boy with much less free time on his hands.
Sounds like the subject Ebay abuser conducted himself in much the same way, flouting their attempts to ban him and only trying to be a nuisance. After repeated attempts to handle it on their own by deleting his account and telling him to go away Ebay is laying down the law. They are establishing a case for pressing charges/suing for damages if he ever pulls this again.
I say more power to them.
Andrew Borntreger
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
. .in the civil code to help people with problem customers, diffcult people or x wives and husbands. If you own a 7/11 you can expect a certian percent of the population to be disruptive to your store, and if you can prove it to a local judge, you can seek a restraining order in oder to maintain a civil 7/11.
___
This really isn't a new situation, and if the judge does ban him, it is not setting a precedent. Earlier this year (or maybe it was late last year), the rec.skiing.alpine newsgroup pretty much erupted in an all-out flame war which got to the point of threats of physical violence (there were reports of people visiting other people's houses late at night). The situation got to the point where the police were called, and eventually the courts placed a restraining order on TwoBuddah (who was making the threats). Anyway, the newsgroup calmed down nicely.
The point of this story (I think there was a slashdot article on it earlier) is that banning a user from a public service has been done before (although in this case it was a Washington state court I believe), and was in fact successful. The person in question definitely deserved banishment, as he was disrupting a public place (just like a drunkard can be forcibly removed from a department store if he is bothering the customers), so I don't see any problem with asking for legal intervention in the banning of a person from EBay, so long as his behavior warrants it (which appears to be the case here).
It sounds like he has been notified that he is unwelcome. He continues to establish accounts, probably in spite of agreeing to a terms of use that says he will obey the decisions.
It seems like court protection is reasonable. Federal also makes sense as this is interstate commerce. It would appear that his actions MAY be interfering with Ebay's ability to conduct business.
If I ran a store, and someone kept entering that was asked to leave, I could no doubt call the police and have them removed. This appears to be the equivalent.
I don't see a regulation of the Internet issue with this. This appears to be the same legal system that protects people in real space, and is a good precedent. The idea that you can actually remove users, even with an easy registration process, is a good one.
Remember when BBSes (awaiting the BBS and Internet aren't technically related flames) used call-back verification and would only allow one account so that you could be suspended? This is impossible on the Internet (DHCP/NAT, etc) and seems like the most reasonable approach.
I wish Ebay well.
Alex
Certianly, you can have a court (restraining) order placed upon a person, making it illegal (contempt of court) for them to enter mentioned properties.
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
However, I do wonder how easy this would be to enforce for something such as EBay? Or any other "private affair".
This guy can obviously -
- Change user name
- Change ISP
- Change practically everything "net" which identifies him.
Sure, I guess it's actually not such a stupid idea, in theory. But it's practically unenforcable.
Mong.
*
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
Could we get Jon Katz banned for life?
Probably, but then he would just start submitting articles as J0n K475
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From Dave Barry:
Here is the problem: for many years, the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue of pornography, until finally Associate Justice John Paul Stevens came up with the famous quotation about how he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. So for a while, the court's policy was to have all suspected pornography trucked to Justice Steven's house, where he would look it over. "Nope, this isn't it," he'd say. "Bring some more." This went on until one morning when his housekeeper found him trapped in the recreation room under an enormous mound of rubberized implements and the court had to issue a ruling stating that it didn't know what the hell pornography was except that it was illegal and everybody should stop badgering the court about it because the court was going to take a nap.
Dave Barry "Pornography"
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First they came for the warez kiddies, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a warez kiddie. They then came for the child pornographers, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a child pornographer... finally they came for the assholes, but by then there was no one left to speak up for us.
That very federal / state issue is being fought here in Utah right now.
:) ) He asked the feds for help, but they say that under the current laws, compelling some guy in Virginia to collect Utah tax just doesn't work. So our honorable gov keeps spewing fire, but apparently, Utahs power ends at Utahs borders (and for all of you out there that are not from Utah, thats probably a good thing).
Our fine governor, Mr. Mike Levitt is rabid about being able to charge taxes for items purchased out of state. Apparently on our state income tax forms (and others, I guess. I haven't cared enough to find out), we have to tally all the things we bought out of state, and pay taxes on them. That includes web purchases. So that means that everytime I go buy myself something on ThinkGeek, I gotta save the reciept and pay taxes on them at the end of the year. (And you can guess how many times I do that..
So I wonder, how do we sort it all out? For me, I think the feds should handle it. That elimiates the pain and suffering of having 50 different laws and precedents and customs that need to be applied (which means that your average sysadmin would need to know the rules in all 50 states just in case something went down).
Of course, how the feds should handle it, and the legality of such a rule and all that other jazz is way beyond my post (so don't flame me for it, dammit...). Thats why I am sitting in this cube in Utah, and not Washington DC.
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I would hardly call this a great precedent for anything. We don't need more laws that don't work interfering with private business. And it's a Sisyphean task to try to do anything to stop the onslaught of spammers, phone solicitors, etc. Kind of like trying to plug a raging river with corks. Look at /. -- even as more "lameness filters" are added to the code, the quantity of trolls has gone way up (apparently inversely proportional to the quality). Almost always, the government is not the best route for this kind of thing.