eBay Exec. Boasts About Lack Of Users' Privacy

Vertically Integrated writes "The Register has an article about Joseph Sullivan, an eBay executive who has been bragging to 'an audience of law enforcement officials' about the auction site's disregard for the privacy of its users. How true this is is not known, but Sullivan is quoted in the article as saying: "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.""

Comments

Not great news

[Henry V .009]

Oh damn. This is going to sink the price of my 10 pounds of weapons enriched uranium that are up for auction at the moment. Terrorist#597 has already pulled his bid.

Actually, I would be much happier if law enforcement took a harder stance on ebay auctions. There need to be provisions in ebay license terms that keep everyone's indentities out in the open. Online auctions present an incredible opportunity for fraud. It is important that law enforcement has the power to go after the scammers.

Random Trivia

[__past__]

According to german police, about 50% of internet-related crimes in germany are related to eBay or other online auctions ; mostly vendors that take your money but never ever send you anything for it. They also mentioned that the rate of reported incidents that are being successfully brought to court is about 100%, but that a lot of people just won't report it to local police because they think that it's not worth the hassle, thereby letting the criminals get away with.

If you grok german, read the related item on heise news.