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Ebay's Flexible Privacy Policy
l2718 writes "Ha'aretz has a disquieting report on a presentation made by eBay's senior counsel to law-enforcement officials. Apparently eBay logs all user interaction with them, and will happily hand over all the information to any law-enforcement official without a warrant -- a fax is quite sufficient. He is actually proud of their 'flexible' privacy policy."
..did *his* soul go for on e-bay?
I don't know another Web site that has a privacy policy as flexible as eBay's," says Joseph Sullivan. A little bit later, Sullivan explains what he means by the term "flexible." Sullivan is director of the "law enforcement and compliance" department at eBay.com, the largest retailer in the world.
Sullivan was speaking to senior representatives of numerous law-enforcement agencies in the United States on the occasion of "Cyber Crime 2003," a conference that was held last week in Connecticut. His lecture was closed to reporters, and for good reason. Haaretz has obtained a recording of the lecture, in which Sullivan tells the audience that eBay is willing to hand over everything it knows about visitors to its Web site that might be of interest to an investigator. All they have to do is ask. "There's no need for a court order," Sullivan said, and related how the company has half a dozen investigators under contract, who scrutinize "suspicious users" and "suspicious behavior." The spirit of cooperation is a function of the patriotism that has surged in the wake of September 11.
eBay is the world's largest auction site. Some 62 million registered users buy and sell a variety of merchandise through the site, which charges commissions for every item sold. Sullivan claims that 150,000 Internet users earn their livelihood from the site, some having left their old jobs to become buyers or sellers on eBay.
The sales method on the site is simple: An individual registers as a user, types in his particulars, and affirms that he accepts the user conditions and the site's privacy policy. Whenever an item is sold, the buyer fills out an evaluation form, telling other users about the treatment he received, whether the merchandise was sent on time, etc. Other eBay users can then avoid buying from sellers who have received poor grades.
Sullivan says eBay has recorded and documented every iota of data that has come through the Web site since it first went online in 1995. Every time someone makes a bid, sells an item, writes about someone else, even when the company cancels a sale for whatever reason - it documents all of the pertinent information.
One would think that preserving privacy of the users, whose moves are so meticulously recorded, would be keenly observed at eBay, whose good name in the Internet community is one of its prime assets. But in the U.S. of the post 9/11 and pre-Gulf War II era, helping the "security forces" is considered a supreme act of patriotism.
Who needs a subpoena?
"We don't make you show a subpoena, except in exceptional cases," Sullivan told his listeners. "When someone uses our site and clicks on the `I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Which means that if you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details - all without having to produce a court order. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site," he adds. He says he receives about 200 such requests a month, most of them unofficial requests in the form of an email or fax.
The meaning is clear. One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user's full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed, feedbacks received, bids he has made, prices he has paid, and even messages sent in the site's various discussion groups.
Attorney Nimrod Kozlovski, author of "The Computer and the Legal Process" (in Hebrew), heard the lecture, and could not believe his ears. "The consent given in the user contract should be seen as `coerced consent,' in the absence of any opportunity to exercise free choice, with no real alternative but to agree. This is most certainly not conscious consent."
Kozlovski is part of the Information Society Project group at Yale Law School, in which he and his colleagues consider the effects of the new media on the structure of society. American law does not authorize searches of a person's home or body, he says, except in exceptional cases such as when the court authorizes a search, or when the individual gives his consent to a search.
"In the case before us, the Web site signs the user to a document that says it can do whatever it wants with his information. The eBay contract signed by the user concedes his or her rights to protection from the government; in essence, as soon as the contract is signed, eBay can invite the government to do whatever it wants with the information, he says.
A brief visit to the company's Web site reveals that the "user contract" that visitors are supposed to read before agreeing to the conditions is 4,023 words long. One paragraph makes reference to the site's "privacy policy." The user has to click on a link and is diverted to another document that is some 3,750 words long. It then takes another 2,390 words to reach the section about which Sullivan told the legal authorities: The user's privacy is solely up to eBay.
"The users are asked to read and agree to the site policy before they can make use of it," eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove told Haaretz. "We provide a link to our privacy policy on every single page of our site, and provide summaries of this policy, all so that users will be familiar with our policy."
We will work for you
Nevertheless, eBay does not make do with simply sharing its data with the legal authorities. Sullivan says the company employs six investigators, all of whom have experience in police investigations. Their job is "to track down suspicious people and suspicious behavior." To that end, they scan for patterns that are atypical - different from "normal patterns." For example, if a person sold baseball tickets for two months and suddenly switches to selling a car, the eBay system will "wave a red flag" and signal the seller as someone behaving unusually. Who asks eBay to do it? No one. eBay volunteers.
eBay goes even further. In his lecture, Sullivan spoke about how he helped investigators locate a user who had been suspected of selling stolen cars through the site. "We tried to buy the car from the thief and in that way incriminate him. But the bad guy was smart. He saw there wasn't a single feedback in the history of the person who was making the purchase. He told us he didn't want to make a deal with us."
Sullivan explained that the incident taught the company a lesson, and that since then it has used pseudo buyers for which it constructs comprehensive simulated histories, including simulated feedbacks, all for the sake of incriminating those suspected of theft. "eBay is not willing to tolerate acts of fraud carried out on its site," explains Pursglove. "We believe that one of the ways to fight fraud is to cooperate with the legal authorities at the various levels.
Sullivan is even more forthcoming. Aware of how hard the police work, he decided to help as much as possible. "Tell us what you want to ask the bad guys. We'll send them a form, signed by us, and ask them your questions. We will send their answers directly to your e-mail." Essentially, by engaging in what seems like impersonation, eBay is exploiting its relationship with customers to pass on information to law enforcement authorities. Why? "We take various steps in order to fight fraud and provide a safe buying environment for our numerous users," says Pursglove.
"In order to prevent misuse of authority, the law ensures that authorized impersonation will only be used with persons suspected of carrying out illegal activity," says Pursglove. But eBay's practice is to impersonate people on a regular basis, for law-enforcement objectives. However, "there need not be a proven connection or well-founded suspicion of a crime having been performed," claims Kozlovski.
In July 2002, eBay bought PayPal, Inc. for $1.45 billion. PayPal, which offers the most popular means of payment on eBay, provides clearing services for the execution of online transactions. It enables Internet users to open accounts on the company site, transferring money from their credit card or bank account. When carrying out a transaction, the seller receives a certificate with which money can be withdrawn from the buyer's account in cash. The system obviates the need to reveal personal financial data.
When Paypal was acquired, the company reported 16 million users, as well as 3 million business accounts and 28,000 new visitors to the site each day. About 60 percent of PayPal's income derives from commissions received from users buying goods on eBay. About 70 percent of eBay buyers use PayPal.
Two years earlier, eBay bought Half.com, a site that specializes in sales of CDs and books. Sullivan explained that these acquisitions help eBay to provide lawmen with a full picture. "Every book or CD comes with a bar code. So we know who bought what. The acquisition of PayPal helps us to locate people more precisely. In the old days, we had to trace IP addresses (unique address given to computers linked to the Internet), to locate the buyer, but now Paypal supplies us with the money trail.
PayPal has about 20 million customers, which means that we have 20 millions files on its users," Sullivan proudly relates. "If you contact me, I will hook you up with the Paypal people. They will help you get the information you're looking for," he tells his listeners. "In order to give you details about credit card transactions, I have to see a court order. I suggest that you get one, if that's what you're looking for." It isn't certain that visitors to the site are aware of the thick hints eBay gives the lawmen.
"By buying PayPal, eBay is merging the information about the goods trail with the money trail," explains Kozlovski. "Thus, in spite of the protective mechanisms of the law against disclosure of details on transactions, eBay is in a position to analyze the full set of data and `advise' investigators when it might be `worthwhile' for them to ask for a subpoena to disclose the details of a financial transaction. Essentially, this bypasses the rules on non-disclosure of details of financial transactions and the confidentiality of the banker-client relationship."
Kozlovski mentions how special investigator Kenneth Starr issued a court order that ordered the bookstore where Monica Lewinsky bought her books to report to him the names of the books she bought. "Then, there was a huge fuss. Now you don't need a special order - eBay does the work for the investigators."
Kozlovski feels that eBay's practice should be seen as part of a worrisome trend in the West to curtail protection of individual rights. In communist regimes, he says, the state would assign watchers to follow every citizen, who would pass incriminating information on to the authorities. Now the state doesn't have to do a thing. People come to it of their own free will. This is also the case for eBay, which exploits its stature in the market to have users accept contracts that strip them of their privacy. Perhaps the regime is different, but the outcome is most assuredly the same.
A million new items a day
eBay has no operations in Israel. But in the U.S., Europe and even the Far East, the name eBay is uttered in the same breath with names like Yahoo, Google and Amazon. The company created an electronic business arena where sellers offer their wares and buyers purchase them. eBay's trick is that both the sellers and the buyers are ordinary citizens. On eBay, you can find people selling used chewing gum (and there are buyers), torn soccer balls, 18th century forks, sunflower seeds and luxury cars (in 2002 alone, some 3,000 cars were sold on the site, at a total of $30 million.)
eBay is one of the few Internet companies that shows huge profits quarter after quarter. The company completed the fourth quarter of 2002 with revenues of $414 million and net profits of $87 million. The company had overall income in 2002 of $1.2 billion, and net profits of $250 million. It is traded on Nasdaq at a company value of $23.4 billion - three times that of Amazon, twice that of Yahoo and eight times that of the Israeli security behemoth, Checkpoint.
At any given moment, eBay is conducting some 12 million auctions, divided into about 18,000 different categories. About two million new items are offered for sale every day, and 62 million registered users scour the site to find them. These users have given eBay the monopoly on online auctions in America. Companies such as Yahoo and Amazon tried to get into the auction market, but were forced to give up. An estimated 150,000 people earn their livelihoods solely from buying and selling items by Internet. The company maintains local sites in Britain, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Singapore and Sweden.
eBay is a monster that churns out money 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - for itself and for its millions of users.
I've got a fax machine...
Maybe you need letterhead.
Oh, I've got an Internet connection, and plenty of places have seals and official logos online. The quality isn't great, but hey - it's a fax, right?
Maybe you need a phone number.
Oh, I've gota phone I can sit by and pretend to be whoever I want when I answer it.
What was it Kevin Mitnick said about social engineering?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
They could always just auction the entire database on eBay every once in a while.
Don't complain about eBay and other companies doing this--complain about the laws that don't protect our privacy. Talk to your representative and make the case for protecting such information if this kind of thing bothers you (and it should).
In this current age of "let's go get them badguys", is anyone really surprised that a company would so willingly acquiesce to the government? Should they? Good question, but are you surprised that they DO?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/
. ht ml
It appears they have a presence in the UK. Therefore the Data Protection Act applies to them. They make no mention of this in their Privacy Policy:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/png-priv
Oh, dear. Looks like someone should shop them to the Data Protection Registrar...
No, eBay, you are little more than a big marketing engine that pools people into one place, slowly being taken over by free services such as ebid.co.uk.
I don't care how small a point font it was printed in,
as long as it was printed on the site when I registered, or sent to me in an e-mail update.
Now, the legality of defining their policy and having you click-thru is still up in the air with EULAs; just because its printed in legalese doesn't mean it will hold up in court.
But to give me a warm fuzzy, disclose it to me.
Why? Because there are a lot of rip-off artists on e-bay. If it makes it easier for law enforcement to find and fine these scummy ebayers, that is a GOOD THING.
Honestly, I'd rather have E-bay in my corner if I get screwed than to have them go the PayPal route.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I can web-scrape all that same info off the site.
Bid histories for each auction, items you've bidded on, auctions you've won... Yep.. It's all there.
I've been spammed to death because of eBay (luckily I use a hotmail address with them). I bought a couple of old SNES games, next thing you know 100 yahoos are offering me CD's full of ROM images for 20 bucks or so.
Tracing your email address to the actual person is a small hoop to jump through.
Any real privacy on eBay is a figment of your imagination. It's like expecting your trip to the mall to be 'private'.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I usually am for privacy, but you use eBay with an intent to make profit by selling your crap/loot/whatever. If you're obviously selling stolen goods on eBay, then the police should be informed.
Belgian diamonds anyone?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
It IS Ebays policy, apparently. They could certainly force a law enforcement agency to produce a warrant... but if they want to be more forthcoming than that, they are certainly within their rights.
Now, it may irk Ebay's USERS...
Of course, this could be open to abuse... Say you want your Ex-girlfriend's information... forge a law-enforcement agency letterhead, and fax the request from your local Kinkos (I wonder if they require a direct phone contact before they give up the goods... though that would also be easy to fake).
Hmmm... caveat emptor
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Well, I come from the Car world... Working on honda's.
I will tell you, a good amount of SCAMMERS are on ebay and I swear most of them end up scamming people on performance car parts... or fake "upgrades" like a teeny $0.05 resistor that is supposed to add 20 HP for $50..
or people disguising one car as another for sale...
Calling something a higher trim level than it really is...
OR, another big hype is to Disguise one part as another... Especially With the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) craze, everything is called JDM!
I know of several people that have been seriously ripped, and in a way, I'm glad that Ebay will pass out a scammers info.. esp. to the police.
This is just the world that we live in if you ask me...
-Henry
--- #@$DF@#2%@^%3^&*$%FRHG%%[NO CARRIER]
Most sites have clauses in their privacy policies saying that they can change them at any time without notifying users, and the changes are retroactive to any information they already have. It's up to the user to notice the changes by reviewing the policy regularly and finding contact information for someone who can remove it, then askin them to do so before they have time to give the information away if it changes.
Yup, when that happens, a lot of police are going to head over to Anne Nonymouse's place in Beverly Hills 90210. I think she's ordering a lot of child porn.
Don't bother emailing eBay in cases of fraud. You may or may not get an answer. Sounds like the way to go is to get a local police department to take a complaint. Hand them the request for information to fax for you. Post the results...
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Admire that string of X's in the "Legal Requests" column.
If you have ever been ripped off or defrauded on ebay, you would look at this from a different perspective.
The last thing I want to do when someone defrauds me using ebay is jump through the many legal hoops to obtain a warrant.
As stated, this information can only be requested by law enforcement, and trust me, law enforcement officials don't get off of from violating your privacy and requesting it just for kicks. This is a welcome move that will help people that got screwed recover their money a little easier and a little faster. I, and many other ebayers, welcome the policy.
Witold
www.witold.org
witold.org
My fellow Americans, we must accept that the world has changed, both for better and for worse. With the advent of the Internet, communications can be instantaneous and this has altered the way we do business and socialize. Likewise, the ability to commit a crime is instantaneous, and we must have the ability to quickly track down and bring perpetrators to justice.
You cannot have one side of the coin without the other. I am confident that eBay with its policy is a shining example of how we must adapt our procedures to fit the new reality of Internet-powered terrorism.
Thank you and God bless America.
George W. Bush
President, United States of America
Not that I condone it for even a second - how can eBay (yes, /. editors, that's how it's spelt, how can you not get that much right?) be sure that the person requesting the information is a legitimate law enforcement official?
Even if they were, any information garnered in this way would immediately be thrown out of court in most countries (including the US) as inadmissible, because the source would be deemed an illegal search if the proper warrants hadn't been obtained.
Without even examining the link it's obvious why eBay would do this - verifying the legality and scope of every warrant that it is presented with takes time, and time costs money. Rather than spend this time and money unproductively (cooperating with police officers doesn't produce revenues), they choose the path of least resistance.
Unfortunately, eBay is sufficiently large enough (or at least it thinks it is) that it doesn't see this as a reason for people to defect to less popular rival online auction sites.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If a competing auction site were to be setup with greater privacy, and was successful, more power to it. As long as eBay fully discloses its policies, then there shouldn't be any whining about it -- folks are free to vote with their mouse, and click on another auction site
Personally, I think it's positive that eBay will cooperate with bona fide investigations, and not force them to jump through hoops (at taxpayer expense!) to get the data they need to do their job.
It's not as though medical records are being stored on eBay -- just one's bids on beanie babies, or other baubles.
Even scarier ... who owns PayPal these days?
I hear some people use it like a bank. Would you want your financial info tossed around like that?
One more reason so stay way from Paypal.
yes, Ebay now owns paypal-
However what I'm referring to is problems where people paid through paypal, never got an item in return, and paypal said "sucks to be you. What do you want me to do about it?!"
Here is a link to Paypal's class action suits... read the front page story.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
If I placed an ad in the paper selling something (say, a large supply of ammonium nitrate fertilizer), and the police came up to me and asked me about what people came and inquired about it, I would tell them without hesitation. Big deal.
Guess what? There is no right to anonymity. And law enforcement has to have SOME room to work. Too many people seem to think that law enforcement should be required to never ask questions and never access the public.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Could someone please come up with an appropriate letterhead and send a request on behalf of some law enforecement authority for all transactions by this shadey sullivan character and then post the results?! I think, since if he used his service, he clearly agreed to these terms himself, it would be worthwhile for him to see them in action...
The correct term should be 'lack of' privacy policy.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
I've been ripped off so many times on eBay, (trying to buy an Apple PowerBook) that I think its a good thing that the Police get a whiff of whats going on.
Does this mean I'm going to get busted for winning an auction for a bootleg copy of Beat Street?
I don't know about laws in the US, but in many European countries it's illegal for companies to disclose a private information for the outsiders. This includes law enforcement agency without a good cause (warrant).
Fine print/policy is pretty irrelevant here, since it cannot contradict a law.
This will not affect rip off artists, the FBI doesn't go after guys for selling you something you don't like, they'll use it to go after the people selling us something truly unique, like a piece of the berlin wall, or a piece of the space shuttle. If the govt. drops a space ship in my back yard, I want to be able to sell the damn broken thing, it's of no use to them, but instead now there will be 4 fbi agents at my house.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
I work for a banking service provider (one of the guys who run the banking software for the little 1-50 branch banks). A few years ago we used to get excited because the Secret Service or FBI wanted us to pull some records. These days we almost need a full time person to track this stuff down. This week we got a call from a homicide detective in Columbus, OH. (Is that really a city?) The detail we can provide these guys is pretty complete - even if it's just a lame web banking hack attempt, we can often link that attempt back to a specific ISP user (because the ISP often attaches additional information to web requests - ahem, AOL) as well as tell ever single transaction that account, that IP, that user has done since XXX. And what does it take for people to get the information? At first we only trusted agents with ID at the door, but it really is getting to the point of a phone call and a fax; in fact, the best way to social engineer these days might just be to pretend you're a cop - the person on the other end of the phone (at least at my place) will generally roll over and cough up whatever you want by the second phone call. Fortunately, some management types have started to pay attention to the hack opportunity provided and are beginning to educate the first-line responders to these kind of calls that just because they say they are cops, doesn't mean they really are....
Yesterday I tried to delete my account, but I can not, it will not let me.
I do not ever intend to use ebay, but it seems my account will forever be there.
Annoying that.
Ebay owns paypal.
It depends- if you have a secondary account attached to it, its no big deal.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Say the RIAA comes knocking on Ebay's door and wants a list of everyone who sold, bought, traded, anything with live boots, records, vinyl, cd's etc etc of any major label artist. Or what if the label themselves gets involved.
I think some people would have different opinions on this privacy issue, although I agree when it comes to the scam artists a heightened police interventention level would be welcome.
Fear Breeds Knowledge
They are actively looking for suspicious behavior, alerting the cops, and suggesting that a subpeona might be in order if the cops want to see the paypal records.
What really bothers me is that Ebay also "constructs comprehensive simulated histories, including simulated feedbacks, all for the sake of incriminating those suspected of theft".
Makes me glad I closed my account with them in 98 or 99 after they decided that users who clicked off all offers for spam didn't mean it.
This should be the final proof, if proof were required, that privacy policies and TRUSTe seals audits and seals are ineffective at protecting consumers.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You can get my bid history and my email, but you can't get my credit card number, my home address and phone number, and now they require you to put in a bank account to be a seller. I don't want all that handed to the "Homeland Security Agency". What if I like the Iron Cross, or the swastica, will they suddenly start investigating all my banking and credit card numbers, criminals should be caught I agree, but that is what warrants are for, when they hand over this info for something as simple as a fax that compromises my rights I feel.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
The amount of people here who say this is a GOOD thing!
Ebay owns PayPal! That means PayPal is included in this! Its the same as a poilceman going to your bank & asking for your complete financial details... Do you want this too???
This has nothing to do with terrorism! The 9/11 terrorists had plastic knives any other low-tech means...
One word.... INADMISSABLE IANAL, but, I bet that private information obtained on John Doe from eBay by a "law enforcement official" without a search warrant will get nixed by a judge.
There are two things that make this less dangerous. #1 it costs eBay to fulfill these requests, and they aren't going to be capable of handling all the requests coming in *if* police feel they can just send in a fax and get their answer for free. #2 the police will be looking for specific info, and the process of getting a search warrant for that info is not "expensive" enough to risk having the evidence be inadmissable in court if they do, in fact find something.
I mean, law enforcement should be able to easily find out what people were doing on sites such as e-bay...I mean, its not like any of your financial transactions are secret anyways.
As long as there isn't a way for random people to abuse this flexible policy, I hope it helps when trying to catch people on EBay that are trying to screw others...
AFAIK if the data goes out of Europe, you need to opt-in...
As an Ebay user, 200 request a month for personal information seems high to me.
I could have a buddy that works at the police department. If I visit him frequently, nobody would see a problem with me saying he is expecting me and I will just wait in his office. While he is at lunch, I could use his fax machine and request the information of anybody I want.
When all else fails, piss on it. At least you will feel better in some kind of way.
I much prefer the other way of doing business than what sounds suspiciously like fascism.
If I sell something fraudulently, there is recourse for the buyer. I'm really not liking the idea that if I create an auction or browse for a product, that I could be investigated without real cause.
Some might say that you shouldn't mind if you haven't done anything illegal. To those I say, then you won't mind if the police come search your house regularly either.
I can web-scrape all that same info off the site
And I quote the article (which I actually read)...
What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed
I would like to see you scrape that.
Only on Slashdot would someone who obviously had not read the f***ing article get mo... Oh, never mind...
If you are selling on ebay. Read the agreement.
Thanks for your attention.
My Ass hurts.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Most of the information is readily available to other eBay users. I think, however, that more information should be made public and readily accessible (with the exception of email addresses).
For example, the guy that sniped me a couple weeks ago, on a nice 24V, 6A power supply. I looked in his history, and saw that he'd recently bought some, ermmm, enhancement products. It's the little things (heh heh) like this that take the pain out of losing an auction.
...
Your correct of course, but I was looking for an example of things that we as normal people would never get to see or do, because of government coverups, that don't really hurt anyone. I guess a better example would be selling your own video tape of an assasination or something. You taped it, but if you tried to see it, see you next week at Fort Benning's NSA headquarters
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
I don't consider that a fact until someone with an ebay account and a fax machine really gives it a try and manages to get their own account info.
My next comment will be ready soon, but moderators can beat the rush and mod it up early.
I'll give you my home address, and I garantee you have no hope of getting my credit card number, bank account information. or anything else. I memorize my pins, my security question is, what is my pin, and besides on all credit card change of information they ask for my credit card number, how are you going to get that. Super hacker.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
If you'd read the article, you'd know that eBay owns PayPal. They even talk about "hinting" to law enforcement that they should go get a warrant for some information because eBay/PayPal thinks that law enforcement would find it interesting.
Sheesh.
They're taking their dog to get its two shots before it's too late. You're taking your dog there too, right?
I have no problem that they disclose the information to law enforcement - eBay is so frought with scammers anymore that drastic steps need to be taken or online auctioning will cease to be. However anyone with a good printer and MS Word can fake a document. Just make yourself out to be "deputy Joe Schmoe" from some podunk police department no one would care about or even think twice about - what's the harm in that anyway?
The problem is, if people have a dispute then there is a reason the cops should be involved. Otherwise it makes it a lot easier for someone who got screwed out of $100 to figure out who did it, and take illegal means to solve their problem.
SHOULD eBay give out information to actual Law Enforcement Officers? You bet. I'm all for it. If the government wants to spy on me they have easier ways I'm sure. However even though they do not require a warrant, eBay absolutely needs to verify the authenticity of the official requesting the information - even just cross checking that (a) the police department or office exists (a quick check on one of the many online phone directories could tell you that) and (b) that the official requesting the information actually works there. I am sure that the half dozen investigators eBay has in pocket could handle a two minute phone call each for the 200 or so requests a month they get. That's less than 5 minutes a day per person and would aleviate this whole issue.
C'mon eBay, live up to the reputation you claim to have and protect the good guys!
Prior to that, a phone call is all that is necessary to a service provider to legally obligate them to preserve whatever records they already have for the given subject. This power comes from 18 USC 2703 (f) and is known as an "Order to Preserve." It does not require the service provider to start collecting new information, or collect more than they previously were, just to preserve what they already have. That gives law enforcement time to draft the court order and get it signed.
Legal counsel at service providers know these issues very well. eBay is apparently choosing to make life easier on the legal end of things by offering a certain level of cooperation. Notice it did say they would require a warrant in certain situations, so it's not 100%.
Privacy should be inherent and not require laws to protect it.
Yes in today's society it does, but its sad.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They pass the data onto somone else, which is covered under the DPA.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Dataprotection in EU si not about where the data is stored. It is about having the right to know, check , and correct data stored on YOU , EU citizen. Likewise like USA saying they have the right to Sue/pursue people having done sales in the USA, when you do have a transaction with somebody in the EU what count is not where you store the data , but the fact that you have per see a contract/sale with somebody resident in EU.
Else this would have been YEARS that every EU firm would have put their Data server in some off shore haven.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
How about the Top 10 List of Police Database Abuses?
Cheers, Joel
Columbus is Ohio's Capital City.
Capitals Map
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
When you sign up to participate on Ebay, you are choosing to allow greater access to your information. You are not required to give any information to Ebay, unless you want to buy or sell there.
Once you decide to participate in commerce within any community, you should have a lower expectation of privacy than if you didn't participate, as long as the lower privacy is directly relative to protecting the integrity of the community. You can't compare this to the privacy you expect from your ISP, just releasing your browsing habits to the feds with a simple request.
As a seller: You are knowingly trading a small amount of privacy in exchange for a less fraudulent environment to trade in. You must provide a credit card for verification and for billing. In the real world, you still have to go downtown and give proof of who you are to get a business license. The police can legally watch who goes in and out of your business, without a warrant, just as they get info from ebay about transactions.
As a buyer, you still have to provide certain information in order to complete a purchase. This is true in any enviroment where you are not standing there, with currency in hand. Even then, any police officer can legally WATCH you make this transaction within plain view.
This bring online and offline into parity, thats all. Bringing public transactions (the auctions) within plane view. Personally, I have no problem with ebay releasing information to the feds to assist with investigations, with proper notification to me via the privacy policy.
Since I am asking people all over the globe to give me money, it should be my DUTY to do so in a very open manner, not being able to "hide" just because I am using a computer network to do my selling. It is this transparency that makes capitolism work fairly for everyone.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I work in Student Records at a technical college in MN. I will NOT allow anyone to request information over the phone. They must either MAIL or FAX me a request with a hand written signature in order for me to release this information to them...
State and Federal law states that people can request information over the phone if it is going directly to them and *I* feel that it is really that person. Problem here is that I cannot verify if it is really them and the social engineering thing comes into play. So basically I won't accept any phone requests. I feel that I cannot safely determine who the person is if I don't see a handwritten request.
Oh, for chrissakes - handwritten requests are completely and utterly useless. Let me guess, it has to be on letterhead? See parent post regarding availability thereof...
So I fax you a request. It has Police Department letterhead...or something similar. I mean, you don't know what the Jackass Police Department's letterhead looks like. And I sign it as the chief of Jackass Police Department. You don't know what his signature looks like either. And I put my phone number on it - but it has the same area code and extension as the main number, so it could be a non-main phone line. Or maybe I made up a police department that doesn't even exist.
How many E-bay knobs are going to fully check this? Are they going to get a directory assistance to find the PD and check the number? Are they going to talk to the chief, from the phone number they looked up, to make sure he ordered the data? What if they can't find the department's listing (could be a small department, could be I made it up)? Probably none of the above.
When you get down to it, faxed requests are pretty much worthless. Which is why I would want a warrant served by law enforcement personnel who I could easily check up on. As for DNR, I don't believe that helps with ebay.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
From the article:
Attorney Nimrod Kozlovski, author of "The Computer and the Legal Process" (in Hebrew), heard the lecture, and could not believe his ears. "The consent given in the user contract should be seen as `coerced consent,' in the absence of any opportunity to exercise free choice, with no real alternative but to agree. This is most certainly not conscious consent."
I think this says it all. We are rapidly becoming a society in which corporations can strip individuals of their liberties not by virtue of law, but by using onerous contracts.
Imagine if the utility companies forced a person to hand over keys to their residence when they signed up for service, so that the company could "inspect the premises in the interests of public safety". It wouldn't be long before the utility company would realize that they can make additional income by "renting" your key to law enforcement agencies on demand. But you, the resident would effectively have no say in this - you either agree to their terms, or you do without gas/electric/phone service.
You see, the danger of this is that by "renting" the key, law enforcement no longer needs a warrant to search your house; you implicitly gave consent for entry to the utility company, who then resold that consent to law enforcement. It is these kinds of agreements which allow law enforcement to circumvent the checks and balances gauranteed by the constitution, and this is what makes them so dangerous.
How long will it be before our lives and liberties are entirely beholden to corporate interests?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Imagine being able to search:
Every page you've ever been to.
What you have searched for on Google.
Everything you have looked at, purchased, or sold on eBay.
All financial information from Paypal.
All the people you've sent/recieved email to/from.
I'm sure I'm missing a few things - but who needs TIA when these companies are bending over backwards to provide all this info?
Poindexter probably figured this out and got a raise for saving so much money... :(
Seriously, I couldn't care less if ANYBODY, government, ex-companion, parent, etc) finds out anything about me that I've posted on the internet. If you post something sensitive to eBay, you're a moron. Secondly, are the people that are up in arms about this really so naive as to think that much more valuable data isn't already collected about you everyday? Your expectation of privacy, realistically, ends when you interact with the outside world.
"In communist regimes, [Kozlovski] says, the state would assign watchers to follow every citizen, who would pass incriminating information on to the authorities. Now the state doesn't have to do a thing. People come to it of their own free will. This is also the case for eBay, which exploits its stature in the market to have users accept contracts that strip them of their privacy. Perhaps the regime is different, but the outcome is most assuredly the same."
I used to live under a communist regime, and I think now I much prefer neighbors invading my privacy to get some extra food stamps to feed their children than a huge compnay like eBay appeasing the government a bit too much to get favorable regulation with which to make even more money.
Yes, I know I can just avoid eBay--and I do, so it's not really a great comparison. It just bothers me when people think that capitalism is the panacea for the world's ills and like to point out where it fails.
IAAL.
.co.uk domain indicating an intention to focus on UK users which would persuade a court to take jurisdiction.
Where you store the data is irrelevant. The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates the acquisition transmission and processing of data. It prevent you from transferring such data out of the jurisdiction without safeguards.
If Dabs or eBay serve web pages in the UK/EU (even if they do it from servers in the US) and gather personal data from that web page that activity is governed by the DPA since user interaction takes place with the UK/EU. Some other actions on the data (e.g. automated decision making & processing) may be lawful if they occur outside the EU but the gathering and transmission of the data to the US falls with UK law. Also eBay has a
see privacy
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
Veni, Vidi, Vichy.
since it's usage is voluntary, send a message by not attending their online garage sale.
it's mostly crap anyway.
I wish people would quit whining about the illusion of privacy. THERE IS NONE. And live with that.
I am in the process of cancelling my account with ebay, after hundreds of transactions, because of privacy issues. I complained when some idiot who won an auction I was running gave my name, address and email adress to an on-line money order company. This company created an account in my name on their website. There is no facility to cancel the account. There is no phone number to call for service. There is no response to email sent to them. A search of the net finally turned up a phone number that is always amswered by an answering machine.
And their website always has the same banner ad for great deals on florida realestate. I do not know what real estate in Florida has to do with money order.
Ebay refused to censure the offending member. This is nothing short of obscene.
And then 2 days later they suspended me for not having an up to date phone number in their records. They have my name, addres and my credit card info. I have a fantastic history of postive feedback. I get suspended and the guy who broadcasts my info doesnot even get a warning.
I say thanks but no thanks to ebay. They are simply not interested in protecting the privacy of those selling via their site.
Thats great if you live on some planet where law enforcement is infalible. The whole point of getting a warrant in the first place is so that there's some judicial review.
I wonder how much Ebay charges "users" of this service?
Contrary to the impressions of many /. readers, law enforcement are not "out to get you." They're out to do their job. If you are a law-abiding citizen, and you cooperate fully, you're not going to have any problems.
In fact, I would argue that it is the responsibility of a civic-minded law abiding citizen -- or corporation -- to cooperate with law enforcement to the extent that is permitted them by law (i.e., without breaking a contract). eBay is just doing what any good-minded citizen should do.
It's important to remember that your constitutional right to privacy only extends to the Federal Gov'ment peering into your own home, or your own activities. It doesn't really protect you from them going after other sources of information. Unless you got the other party to sign or offer a privacy agreement, you really don't have any rights to indirect privacy whatsoever.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
Once again talking out of your ass. The replacement card can not be mailed to a PO box, through almost every bank, the credit card must be mailed to your legal home address, in which case they confirm your home phone number is matched with that address. THen they call that number to confirm. Your making things up. Plus, where would you have the bills to this new credit card sent? If it wasn't sent to my home they wouldn't bill me, and if it was sent to my home, I would call the credit card company when i recieved the bill and say I didn't make these purchases, and just like when a company billed me on accident for an order I cancelled, I called my credit card company said, I didn't order this, and they said, ok sir, they removed it from my bill and didn't pay the company issuing the bill. Stop watching dateline and hacker movies and thinking you can do all that. And if you forget your security situation, they say, sir, I can't help you, sir, I can't help you, till you hang up. That's why all calls are recorded, to insure they don't have employees not following company policy. Here is my name and address Thompson, A 226 E 13th St New York, NY 10003 as available on excite. Please don't do anything terrible to me, scary hacker man.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
Look, I can get upset as the next geek about such a poor policy, but realistically... what would one be doing on a giant flea-market like E-Bay that would be harmful if publicly known?
... as morons.
I would contend that EBay is a "public" space, like a mall or open market, and normal public rules apply: don't do anything there that you don't want people to find out about.
Personally speaking, if someone is stupid enough to be satisfying their particular nasty kink on EBay, they deserve to be outed
.
There is actually no Constitutional right to privacy. People like to conjure out of of vapors eminating from other amendments, but it is all smoke and mirrors: it is NOT there. I would be in favor of amending the Constitution to add this right.
No matter how hard you try, you cannot legally sell yourself into slavery, because freedom is inalienable. Any such contract is illegal and void.
I would claim that this kind of privacy is equally inalienable.
Otherwise, we end up with a police state by proxy.
I can only hope that this proves to be true in court. There's nothing that can stop eBay from reporting what they think is a crime to police (in fact, I think that's fine). However, that's very different from having the police request that they release your private information.
Maybe that seems like a narrow legalistic distinction to some, but it's a very important one.
As funny as this idea is, I think taking the rap for impersonating a police officer is taking civil disobediance a bit far...
But in the U.S. of the post 9/11 and pre-Gulf War II era, helping the "security forces" is considered a supreme act of patriotism.
I see patriotism as the willingness to protect our rights and freedoms, while this smacks of blind nationalism. They're promoting the same spin on this that Microsoft uses with respect to 'secure computing.'- it means what you think it means, but only if you're on the other side of the fence.
Number two, target YOURSELF for clicking I agree without reading the small print, or reading it, feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the terms, and then letting the desire for cheap goods overwhelm your better judgement. I am going DIRECTLY to Ebay to cancel my account. Like Amazon, I will not trade my privacy or ideals for convenience. It won't mean shit because the majority of people will (if they even bother to notice their rights getting raped), but c'est la vie. Sure, it's my fault for not paying attention to the terms in the first place... but it's doubly my fault if I don't take my ass off eBay and let them know why.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
However, I really don't like the idea of the authorities being able to make casual inquiries via fax. At the very least, issue a subpoena in which you state a legitimate law enforcement purpose for the inquiry. For this, you only have to get the approval of your police legal advisor or a prosecutor.
The way this looks right now, cops can "browse" through anyone they want to check on, just to see if they can find anything suspicious. While this is certainly not the behavior most of us would engage in, there are always those willing to abuse this kind of device.
Those with a legitimate purpose can easily obtain the information with just a little bit of extra effort, whereas those who are just casually cruising through users (say, randomly checking any high-volume ebayers) may be discouraged by having to articulate a legitimate law enforcement purpose for each case.
As to self-policing on the part of ebay, I have absolutely no problem with that. Just like the Pawn shop owner who sees someone coming in with car stereos all the time, ebay has an ethical duty (in my opinion, with which you may disagree) to report people they believe may be engaging in criminal activity.
On the one hand, I do not feel comfortable doing business with someone who is indiscriminate with how information is handed out. The thought of losing control of where your personal information (even though you freely shared it) could be disclosed, is not a pleasant one. I feel it would be too easy for other corporate entities (read mass marketers, direct marketers, spammers, and any agency who wants to sell me something) to abuse this policy and recieve easy market research.
On the other hand, however, it does bring to mind some sage advice "If you don't do anything wrong, then you won't have anything to worry about.". You have agreed to their policies (whether you like them or not), so you can't complain when they release your information. If you don't like them, don't use them.
Don't cry because you didn't do your homework.
QED
What a retard. So now that the 4th ammendment has been thrown out... any other unpopular ammendments we should target next? I know... how about the 1st? We don't value freedom of speach .... do we?
Trolls all of them.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I'm gonna go out on a limb, here...
I would guess that most people (yes, EVEN student records workers) would question even a formal letter from Jackass PD.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
I work for a place with a similar policy -- if law enforcement gets us on the phone, and sends a written request for information, we'll provide it. It's definitely a grey area with regards to privacy policies; even P3P doesn't have a way to specify under what conditions information will be turned over to law enforcement.
And you know what -- I'm happy with our policy. Because 99 times out of 100 that law enforcement has come to us, it's been with a request for records relating to a user that we had already had to deal with for site/email abuse, attempted hacking, spamming, or fraudulent behavior. I'm usually delighted to see the cops after them.
I can definitely imagine scenarios where I would tell management to tell the cops that they need a warrant of subpeona to get the info -- however, that hasn't come up yet.
Anyonymously,
IT guy for well-known website
" A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
"By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
We used to do the same thing, but not because we wanted to. We routinely got notified by police officers who wanted to have our logs (for a particular user) handed over to them. At first, we asked about a warrant and got the following response (paraphrased):
"Look - if you make us get a warrant, we'll get one. But then we're not only going to ask for the logs, we'll actually seize the machines. We may to have take all your machines to be sure they don't have logs or other information on them. Do you really want to lose your servers? "
We ended up with a policy where we would release records to any law enforcement agent who could provide us with proof of their identity - because we didn't want our service to go down! Law enforcement folks have a lot of weight they can place on service providers in order to gain cooperation.
If you've been scammed and you'd rather not involve the police, just make up your own letterhead, fax it to ebay, get the culprits name and address and extract your own brand of justice.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
"They don't store the data in the UK, and so are not bound by the Data Protection act"
To do business in the EU they either have to store the data in the EU and conform to EU privacy rules, or they can opt out under the US-EU opt out. The opt-out is only valid for companies whose privacy policies in the US conform the EU standards of privacy.
Since eBay do not provide privacy in the US at all, they cannot use the US-EU opt out.
That leaves them one option, protect the data from EU customers and don't let it leave the EU.
eBay have sites in Europe, even if those sites are not physically in the EU, they get paid by credit card and bank transfer and that money stream can be switched off.
So file your complaints in all EU countries, because all of them have some form of Privacy legislation on the books.
"I can web-scrape all that same info off the site."
No you can't, small companies use paypal to receive payment for credit cards, none of this is connected to eBay and none of it is on the website.
Think how a customer feels to know that, not only is their credit card payment not safe, at the drop of a social engineering hat, anyone can get it.
If all you have to do is ask, and you appear to be a law enforcement officer, then they hand it over.
The safest thing to do if you should tape such a thing is to send copies to as many media organizations, foreign and domestic as you can think of. Send a copy to NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, The BBC, some news companies in France, Germany, Austraila, Canada, Japan......etc.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I just closed both my PayPal and my eBay accounts. I cannot condone this policy change and have decided to opt out.
Perhaps if more people do this, eBay might wake up and realize THIS NEW POLICY IS A BIG MISTAKE.
I've been eBaying since 1998. This totally blows.
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Say you get a call from someone claiming to be from the FBI. You get their name, and you ask what office they work out of. Then you call that FBI office (looking up the number yourself), ask for the Supervisory Special Agent in Charge, tell them you have a request from Agent Somebody for some information, and ask them to confirm that it's a valid request. No big deal.
Similarly for police departments. You always want to go at least one level above the person who's asking when you validate a request. That helps to catch cops free-lancing for debt collectors.
I have no idea, though, who you call to check on Homeland Security.
How foolish. In case you haven't guessed: impersonating a law enforcement officer is a crime.
Paypal sent me a notification of the change in their privacy policy the other day.
Wanna bet they have a very similar policy?
So cooperative when it comes to abusing the end consumer's well-being or rights.
That's Corporate America for ya, folks.
... here.
It's sort of like my flexible dieting policy. You know, where I eat anything I want and however much I want. I'm really proud of it as well.
Sheesh!
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
It's not a freedom/safety issue. It's not about violent criminal behavior. It's about money.
Specifically, states are busy passing laws allowing collection of taxes on internet sales, but most of these sales go unreported. (Think about it, did you list last year's eBay sales on your 1040? Well, neither did anyone else.) So this is their method for reporting. And thanks to eBay's "flexible" reporting system, a simple fax request is all that's needed. No need for a time-consuming, cumbersome warrant with all those messy rules about Judge's signatures and prior evidence... just a bored cop's desire to go trolling for evil tax evaders.
"Dear eBay,
Please send us a list of all the transactions in the past 7 years from customers in the 90210 area code.
Thank you,
Sgt. Jackass, Podunk California Police Department."
It's simple. If they want to collect taxes on unreported sales, they start with records from the largest online retailer, the one who hands out information no questions asked. Thanks for nothing, eBay!
Find new, secure outlet for enriched uranium. This ebay gig is just not working.
I'll bet Google does the same thing as EBay -- it's just that Google isn't dumb enough to brag about it. From New York Times, 28 November 2002, page E6:
"Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly -- Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.
"So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information? 'Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google,' Mr. Brin responded."
Well, as much as you'd like to think that it's yours, your interaction on a site is THEIR data. Info like credit cards, are of course, yours, but not the way you go through the site. I find it a bit surprising that law enforcement can just fax things off, but again, as long as it's their data, they can do whatever they want with it.
Amazon saves complete customer buying records forever.
They use it later to suggest you sell previously stuff as
used items.
They won't let you delete any of your history. Storage is
cheap, so chances are they'll keep that around forever, or
sell it to interested parties.
Considering how much fraud is perpetrated on Ebay, they must have a revolving door for law enforcement.
(n/t)
Some people here seem to be missing the point. The point of requiring a subpoena isn't to harbor terrorists or allow people to rip others off on ebay. The point is that it's a check against an individual police officer having too much power. Do you think every single police officer in the world is a moral individual who lives to serve? Please. I live in Philadelphia. There was a recent scandal right near where I live.
As of mid-1997, five had been convicted on charges of making false arrests, filing false reports, and robbing drug suspects.2 Officers raided drug houses, stole money from dealers, beat anyone who got in the way and, as a judge trying one of the ringleaders stated, generally "squashed the Bill of Rights into the mud."3 Due to exposure of the officers' actions, thousands of drug convictions were under review as of the end of 1997, with between 160 and 300 cases already overturned because the suspects were arrested by officers known or believed to havebeen involved in misconduct.
source: http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police/uspo108.htm
This country is founded on the principle of democracy protected by a system of checks and balances. Without balance, which way will the scale of civil liberties that many of us hold dearly tip? Please THINK about what I am saying. Privacy IS important.
Ask the people at Guantanamo bay what they think about due process. http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=1132767 (16th suicide attempt at Guantanamo Bay. These people are _suspected_ terrorists, which we call "unlawful combatants". They are being tortured, and many of them apparently would rather die than continue to be interrogated. That happens to some people after a year of torture.
Protect your rights now. When you've lost them and you realize their importance, it may be impossible to get them back.
Some people think a low UID /. account is worth money. Yes, they're idiots, but they're willing to pay money for it. The same goes for ridiculous fashions or other "prestige" items. Number one rule of capitalism: offer goods and services and take the money offered in return, even if you think those people are really silly.
Also, sex goes down well on ebay. Have a look at how much panties or other fetish clothes go for on ebay. Guys thinking with their dicks bid more than women looking for normal clothing. Since the used panties debacle (panties advertised as having been worn, mailed foil packed for "freshness", usually sold at over $100 per pair), ebay yank all used panties auctions. All clothes have to be advertised as clean and laundered, or their cleanliness state not mentioned at all. This isn't because of any special law, it's just to stop opportunistic sellers hawking $10 underwear for over $100, just because they have a woman's scent.
Does my bum look big in this?
rolling over and taking it where the sun dont shine.
Not even to mention all the abuse possibilities that were already discussed.
It might be contrarian and will surely be flamed into ash, but I actually agree with the policy. A wide open forum such as e-Bay is a perfect way for terrorists to communicate un-seen, even easier that Hotmail or Yahoo free mail and harder to monitor. Obscure auctions in odd corners of the site could be no-more than coded back and forth communication, i.e. a final bid for 9 super fuzzy furbies in the 11 box set ... it sounds far fetched but not when one thinks about it. The Russians call this maskirovka, or "hiding in the light".
I guess what they are doing is protecting themselves in case it is revealed something like the above happens. They can can say to press, well, we have this policy, etc. but as no-one in law enforcement alerted us to look at such and such an auction how could we have known? Imagine the fall-out for e-Bay if terrorists used the system and it turned out e-Bay had been refusing info to the CIA.
With bio-weapons, nukes, dirty bombs, etc. terrorism is now so potentially devasting that old fashioned notions of privacy, etc. just do not work anymore, sadly. I hate that our liberties are being eroded but I can not see any other way to fight terrorism.
I posted much the same message on the OC Systems thread yesterday, but it also applies here. There seem to be a lot of "Yeah, I got ripped off, but eBay wouldn't do anything about it so now I'm hosed" responses. If you've been ripped off, COMPLAIN. Complain to the company first, but if they don't give you any satisfaction, have the charge blocked on your credit card. If that isn't enough, or that isn't an option, then you need to bring out the big guns and rat them out to the feds! And here are just the websites to do it on:
a udComplaint.htm: The US Postal Inspector's Mail Fraud Report Form. I've used this for a few small value (less than $50) items I've returned to ebay merchants who then didn't send the refund despite repeated e-mails and phone calls. After complaining to the USPS, the rip-off artist got a letter from them and paid up darn quick. And you CAN follow up if no action is taken. I have a lot of criticisms of the U.S. Snail, but this is one area where government action actually seems to work.
http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFr
https://www.ifccfbi.gov/cf1.asp : The FBI's Fraud Complaint Form. The FBI seems a lot less active in prosecuting small cases than USPS, but i get the impression that if they get a LOT of complaints from people on the same company, they start to look in on it. Worth a try.
Remember: Every time you let someone rip you off without calling them on it, it makes it that much easier for them to rip off other people down the line.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
On topic in context? That'll be off topic then :)
Sure, bid histories and auctions won are available for viewing on eBay itself.... and so is whatever email address you chose to use with their service.
But that's *nothing* compared to what they're talking about willingly handing over to anyone claiming to be "law enforcement".
Tracing an email address back to the actual person using it isn't necessarily an easy task at all. Many services out there let people create email accounts on their servers for free, and they barely ask for any personal information at all. (What they did ask for, you could easily lie about.)
As just one example, one of the web sites promoting legalization of marijuana used to run a free mail server that let you get an account at hempseed@org. If you created one of those accounts using false info, plus used a dial-up connection with a dynamically issued IP address - how could anyone trace it back to the originator?
eBay, on the other hand, has your credit card in their possession - which is magnitudes more useful in hunting down a person than some email address it publically displays on auction listings.
At opposite the end of the privacy spectrum from Ebay we have:
_ PU RGE
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BOOK
Didn't you see Enemy of the State??? Jack Black and his van can track your every movement via satellites that can see thru solid concrete... How easy would it be for him and KG to rattle off your credit card #s and track an email to the exact phone jack you plugged your modem into??? Denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
I wonder if it's because one of eBay's legal big-wigs, Mr. Chesnut, is a forner DA from the Federal Courts, Eastern District of Virginia.
how can eBay (yes, /. editors, that's how it's spelt, how can you not get that much right?)
i hope your gross misuse of the english language was intentional, otherwise you certainly look like quite the moron.
I can tell you from experience on both sides of a criminal case that this is all that AOL requires as well. They need a fax on letterhead and a statement that the requester is investigating a crime.
CBC has a story about poachers who got nailed by the Mounties for using eBay as a fence. I guess you can't sell "anything" on eBay. At least you can't get away with it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
...we're talking about the stalker freak who *pretends* to be a cop.
After dealing with some real idiots on ebay, I figured it was not worth my time to find out who is good and who is a Dick It is easier and I have better piece of mind buying products new. My ebay account is closed and shut down so no one can use it.
how can eBay (yes, /. editors, that's how it's spelt, how can you not get that much right?)
i hope your gross misuse of the english language was intentional, otherwise you certainly look like quite the moron.
I look like quite the moron? Why would that be? Because I know the correct conjugation of the verb "to spell" that's needed here?
Why don't you check out dictionary.com before you post next time. Here's the link that you're after: definition of spelt. And, for your additional benefit, here are a few examples courtesy of Google, found simply by searching for the exact phrase "how a word is spelt": Google results.
What were you thinking? That the correct usage would be "how it's spelled"? Sad that you're so quick to criticise when your knowledge is so fragile. Oh well, at least you were logged in as an AC, so at least you've learnt (yes, learnt, not learned) something without suffering too much personal embarrassment.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Like any other, this can be a good initiative for the general public.
Obviously, not everyone wrestles monetary gains against moral rightegousness, but it is common sense to know not to resale illegal copies of movies, software, or even clothing. With that said, there are lots of "shadowy retailers" on ebay that are DEFINITELY selling illegal versions of movies or clothing. This isn't hard to spot either. Just by looking at their auction information reveals basically all anyone needs to know about the authentity of the item. IMHO, if anyone sharing files on Kazaa or other sharing community for free, and can get their asses beaten to the ground (in jail at least), I don't see why these "retailers" should get any less than that. In fact, they are making money which actually serves as a supplier!
With that said, it's a good thing, if used properly. But then again, how do we know?
Hey man, they're like, givin' in to the pigs...
Could I insist, for example, that my employer DNR my records without a court order? Is this federally protected?
I got proof of this within two weeks of the twin towers horror.
I had forgotten entirely an ebay account I created back when they first began - it has been apparently the source of an immense amount of spam unfortunately. Ebay was the only place I used this email account in any public forum. As I had forgotten I was always wondering where it came from until I got an email from them telling me that my ebay membership was being discontinued because my details stateed I was living in Afghanistan, but my address didn't quite add up. Apparently they looked at the home country of everyone's details at the time and would have sent all their info into whichever authorities was asking.
So, if you have bought any sort of war paraphernalia of anykind through ebay, you will be on a big database that the CIA (or whatever they are calling themselves nowadays) are looking over even as you read this.
BigBrother is definitely watching you, and all this talk about middleeast war is being orchestrated purely to give the US (and countries') government more and more power over their contituents in their supposedly 'free demomcratic states'
seeing as all I've bought on ebay is computer stuff, all they are really going to find out about my buying habits is that I'm a total computer geek. :-P Sun's, SGI's, HP's, DG's... I'm defintely a collector of old and aging hardware (and varying platforms).
Then again, they could just ask my friends.
I work at Kinkos. We will make the letterhead for you for $24.99 also. :)
Isn't that about the 3rd such auction this guy has had? Well, at least he's honest (and it's funny as hell, really).
:)
I've wondered if the artistically-mangled metal bucket my Chainsaw Dog made for me would fetch a good price.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Not to be grossly offtopic, but both spellings are correct and incorrect. Traditionally, the commonly accepted past tense & past participle form of "to spell" in English (as in the UK) spelling would be "spelt", where-as the commonly accepted American version would "spelled". It could be argued that "spelt" would be the formal form and "spelled" the informal form (similar to Usted verus Es). However, it is only slashdot and there are some of us that enjoy the butchering of the english language and believe it is part of the reason slashdot has been so sucessful. :)
/. more than "n4tALi3 p0rtM4n's h0t gRitZ". I am also making an active effort to lower the S/N ratio, instead of just whining about it. :)
While I agree that in principle the AC's comments were inflammatory and in general added nothing to the discussion, your reply was just as inflammatory only goes to feed the trolls. I only bring this up since browsing your comment history you generally make quite intellegible remarks I believe have contributed more than most to making
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Think of it like this: You give me your creditcardnumber for some transaction or another.
Someone says he's Dutch law enforcement (which is what I fall under), and asks me for the information. I can do that, because it doesn't cost me anything. And voila, someone you don't know has your private information, without your knowing about it.
The problem is not with law enforcement getting the information, it's eBay *giving away* information that doesn't belong to them.
Regardless of what you may or may not have signed, it's sleazy at best, illegal at worst.
Isn't simulating history and feedback for the purpose of getting somebody else to enter into a sale an act of fraud?
Every time one of these articles on privacy or police abuse of power comes up, you consistantly side with tyranny. You seem to be one of the mollusks who believe that "if you have nothing to hide, you are nothing to fear." Get a brain, please. There is a right to privacy weather your type like it or not. Not everyone wants to live in a fishbowl.
--let them know WHY.
Everyone has the right to privacy, moron. And besides that, how easy would it be for some enterprising crook to lash-up a fax with a fake police dept. letterhead asking these clowns for the credit card #'s of all the persons who made transactions between x_date and y_date? That will probably happen a few dozen times before e-bay decides "Duuhhh, maybe handing out people's vital info to whoever says they are a cop is a bad idea."