Attorney Sues eBay over Negative Feedback

Mephie writes "MSNBC is running a story on an attorney who is suing ebay over negative feedback a seller left about him. It sounds like a classic case of buyer leaves negative feedback for seller; seller responds accordingly. The plaintiff claims he'd not be filing the suit if he didn't feel ebay's policy needs revision, stating 'They can control content and for them to fail to do so is unconscionable.' Yeah. That's great."

Comments

Re:Horray! Lawsuit time!

[TCaM]

While the line may appear to be fine at times, there is a difference between libel and a simple statement of fact. If you are ripped off by someone on ebay simply document it as much as is possible. Then condense this factual information into your feedback. When you use the feedback as a tool to make statements about someone that are not provable or are a personal attack then you are veering into the area of libel or slander.

Re:Why is this in the lawsuit?

[raju1kabir]

"The lawsuit also demands that buyers and sellers, who use aliases in eBay transactions, register their screen names with the state of California as fictitious business names, and that eBay be forced to collect state sales tax." Is this an underhanded way of getting ebay to pay tax? And the rest of it a smoke screen?

Nope, exactly the opposite.

The sales tax thing is a way of putting pressure on eBay to settle; this is a classic crooked lawyer blackmail tactic (go ahead and sue me, Grace; you're a disgrace to the profession and this is the sort of barratry that would see its perpetrator disbarred in more genteel times). It's potentially far more costly to eBay than any judgment they could reasonably expect to pay for the bogus libel claim. eBay throws him a bone, he stops making noise about the sales tax, everyone signs the papers and goes home.