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Ebay Negative Feedback Lawsuit Dismissed
ccnull writes "Slashdot readers may recall the Ebay user who was suing Ebay over allegedly libellous feedback. That case has now been dismissed under the CDA, essentially giving Ebay 'common carrier' immunity, much like an ISP. Victory for free speech or perversion of justice? You decide."
Gee, tripe like this clogs the legal system, while hundreds of more relevant cases go unheard, god bless america. That would be like me suing a person's parents when he calls me an "asshole", does not make any sense, does it? An alternate route would have been to get a court order to make eBay disclose the identity of the alleged libeler (is that a word?, yes according to dictionary.com) then go after him directly, seems like a no-brainer, if I have learned one thing from this country, it is that it is much easier to sue the shit out of a person than a "big, evil corporation".
I hate sigs.
But eBay will remove comments in certain cases. Post someone's phone number, for example; they also act as an appeals court and can be persuaded that a comment is wrong or malicious -- this is rare, sure, but it does happen.
You're right though: the catch though is that eBay goes to extreme lengths to monitor the items for sale on the site but then professes hands off on user comments. It's kind of like me saying that I'll watch your kids while they're in my house but if they head out back to the pool and drown that's tough shit. I think eventually this will be decided in the courts as it's a very thin line the company's straddling.
But yeah, the guy should have sued the poster of the comments. Suing eBay is incidental. But they have a lot more money.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
However, while there are places like SquareTrade that remove feedback, I still find eBay's policy of NOT removing libellous comments irresponsible at best.
As a seller on eBay for more than 5 years, now with more than 1500 feedback comments (99.2% positive), I have felt every negative for WEEKS! after I have gotten them; getting emails about what went wrong, etc etc. I also KNOW LOTS of eBayers will peruse through feedback, even with my high rating and look for my one or two negatives. Where this really comes into play is if the buyer is a problematic or habitual complainer, they will use your previous negatives as ammo against you to say, "See, you have a past of poor service" (Not that I experience that many problems) Just, it seems the last two negatives I have gotten as an excuse to justify the poster's poor communication skills.
I wish eBay had a trade sytem, like exchange 1000 positives for 1 negative once a year. OR I wish they would institute a system that makes it as diificult to leave a negative as it is to apply for an auction fees listing credit. Like; post, wait 10 days before it ACTUALLY posts to the other account, in the meantime, seller/buyer are warned of the potential of the negative comment, on the 10th day negative poster can choose to return to eBay and finalize the comment. This gives oppotunity to work something out.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Actually, it gets weirder.
Ebay's got this partnership/close-connection/they spam you with a group called SquareTrade that you can sign up for (I think you have to have certain number of feedbacks/powerseller status).
SquareTrade lets you do feedback resolution--though of course you have to send them an extra couple of dollars each month.
I guess ebay uses a third party to keep from being considered in any way responsible for comments... but I don't think it's that hard to remove negative feedback (never done it myself.)
I emailed ebay at the time and got this response:
I just checked, and it appears that all of the feedback for msoft has completely disappeared at some point in the last three years.
Funny you should use that example but a Sydney (Australia) restaurant sued a food critic for the Sydney Morning Herald for a bad review a couple of years ago. I can't remember what the result was though.
Well regardless I am pretty sick of hearing of lawyers who seem to define libel as "anything negative however true." I should also point out that opinions are not libel. If I think Ebay sucks, and say so, then I am stating an opinion. Libel is when someone knowingly and maliciously tells lies in order to harm someone's reputation.
If I think GWB blows goats, and it's not true, but I say he does, I am just a looney. But if I know for a fact he does not blow goats, and say he does, that is libel. If we stripped lawyers of their licenses and made them go back to school when they came up with bullshit like this, taht even a layman can see is a spurious legal argument, maybe we would see less of it.