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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."
C'mon, you idiot. Not everyone is going to be pleased with your business, and eBay can't say "Only say positive things about the buyer, even if they screwed you over!" People have opinions, and eBay allows you to voice them on the buyer. eBay isn't going to change their policy now over something that has made them sucessful. Deal with it; not everyone's going to distrust you if you manage to keep your positive feedback up.
Karma whorin' since 1999
Although libel is obviously not protected under "freedom of speech", the banning of certain words (such as fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man) as proposed by this lawsuit, certainly lends itself to a slippery slope.
How can individual words represent libel out of context? Who is the judge of this libel-ous words? Where does it stop?
Ebay clearly states: "WARNING: Once placed, comments cannot be retracted. If you later change your mind about someone, you may leave a follow-up comment to explain the misunderstanding. See the Feedback Forum for an explanation about how your comments affect a user's feedback rating.... eBay cannot remove a comment once it is submitted, nor edit a user's feedback profile. For this reason, we encourage you to contact your trading partner directly by email or by telephone before leaving a negative feedback comment."
The purpose of the ebay feedback system it to create social governance. If you have one or two negative feedbacks out of a hundred or so, I will still buy from or sell to you. If, however, you have a 50% negative feedback I will not. That is the point.
(sig on loan to Smithsonian)
Obviously, the guy is a whiner... but the last paragraph of the MSNBC article is interesting:
" 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."
This seems to have little to do with his complaint; but making everyone register with the state Secretary of State would be a big deal! So your name would be Your Name, d.b.a (doing buisines as...) screename. Christ, what a mess... Can someone who is a Calfornian and or a lawyer comment on paying sales tax on USED items? I know that here in RI, sales tax is only on (some) new sales - used goods (and many new goods) are exemt.
That's the problem. EBay shouldn't be the one to hold the liability for the customer's libel (if it is such). This is an area where libel law falls down in the Internet age. Historically, the owner of the printing press could be held liable for libel. However, (as Slashdot's little reminders constantly tell us), in an era when every post is its own little printing press, the Web site owner should not be held liable for the words of the customers.
I have no problem with the feedback-leaver being sued for libel. However, holding EBay liable for its users' libel isn't the way things should work. The law must adjust to the new medium.