Slashdot Mirror
Scientology Given Direct Access To eBay Database
An anonymous reader writes "The Church of Scientology can delete auctions from eBay with no supervision under the VeRO program, and has used this to delete all resale of the e-meters Scientologists use. This is to stop members from buying used units from ex-members instead of buying from the official (and very expensive) source. Given Scientology's record of fraud and abuse, should eBay give them this level of trust? Will this set a precedent for other companies that want to stop the aftermarket resale of their products?"
Just go to Radio Shack and buy an ohmmeter. They're a lot cheaper.
"Shawn Lonsdale, whose one-man crusade against Scientology made him a public enemy of the church, was found dead at his home over the weekend in an apparent suicide. He was 39."
http://www.xenu-directory.net/critics/lonsdale1.html
That's pretty sad.
I'm an eBay PowerSeller, and I can tell you that it's rampant. eBay's "VeRO" program is regularly abused by liars who have no right to interfere in aftermarket sales of their products, gambling on the fact that you won't file in federal court to contest their "good faith" declarations.
If that's "+5 Insightful" around here these day, then I want a piece of the action: 1 + 1 = 2. This profound result is equally surprising.
I especially love their section on how things won't be mistakenly removed: How eBay helps to ensure that listings aren't mistakenly removed. A rights owner reporting through VeRO must be registered through VeRO before reporting items to us. Rights owners sign legally binding documents when reporting items to eBay. Ooooh! Legal binding documents, I feel so safe.
A blog about stuff.
More Twoson than Cupertino
It's pretty obvious from the early comments that not many people RTFA. (Comments like, "I wonder who at eBay is high up the kook-chain in Scientology?" and all that.) This is an established EBay program called VERO that Scientology has joined, like a bunch of other manufacturers, and (big surprise) happens to be abusing.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Well, if you RTFA, it has nothing to do with insider knowledge. Instead:
"The mechanism that permits the Church of Scientology (and others) such broad access and discretion is called the Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") Program. Membership in VeRO is obtained simply by submitting a form to eBay explaining that you are an Intellectual Property rights holder. ... It should come as little surprise that VeRO members routinely overreach, as the cost of challenging a listing removal is almost always prohibitive. ... The VeRO Program makes a great deal of sense for some types of listings -- counterfeit Rolexes and Gucci handbags appear on eBay with such frequent regularity that those companies would be hard pressed to handle these trademark violations any other way."
eBay has more info about their VeRO program.
Basically, the original summary is misleading: lots of companies (e.g. copyright/trademark holders) have access to directly delete auctions on eBay. The Slyentologists are only one of many (but they're fun to pick on!).
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Other companies have come before SoC.
a Partial list
A blog about stuff.
It's probably cheaper for Ebay to simply acquiesce to the CoS demands than to meet them in court. Even if they win, they may never see their legal fees recovered. There is less risk involved in giving in, too: they loose almost nothing if they yank the items, but could potentially lose a fortune if they don't.
The Scientologists are just that scary.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
The summary and title are a bit misleading. The CoS is removing listings using the VeRO program, not getting "direct DB access" as is claimed. Still blatant abuse of the program, so their actions are definitely NOT defensible.
Interestingly people who are targeted by this can file a DMCA counter claim and bring the issue into the court system. I hope this guy does that - maybe some of the CoS's practices can finally see the light of day.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
Actually GM are included in the program.
http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=gmlicensing
liqbase
You must not be very familiar with the space opera that is Scientology. You see it's all about getting the thetans out. I believe they were an ancient race, that Xenu the galactic prince brought to earth 75 million years ago, set near some volcanoes near Hawaii. Then dropped H bombs in said volcanoes, and somehow their spirits latched on to us homo sapiens, and block our natural super powers, caused all our problems... Etc etc etc. I don't think god shows up in the story, but I could be wrong...
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
And you must not be very familiar with the space opera that is Star Trek, from which the GP was quoting quite humorously.
This is absolutely legal. eBay has every right to allow whoever they want to delete auctions from THEIR website. They aren't denying you your right to resell anything, they are just denying you from being able to do it using THEIR product (eBay.com). For example, an auto maker can't force you to not resell a car, but they can certainly have deals in place with certain locations (such as partnering dealerships) that would deny you from being able to resell your car there. You are still free to sell it from your home or any other place that allows it.
For the record, I definitely think eBay shouldn't allow this, but it is most definitely legal and within their rights.
Jesus Liked Little Boys?
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
I know the CoS is manned by a bunch of persistent barratrous bastards but it is absolutely ridiculous that eBay would cave into them this way. It's lazy and irresponsible for a company the size of eBay to let CoS have their way once again when they have the resources to fight their crap.
It's one thing for the scientologists to claim copyright protections on their literature but restricting the sale or e-meters is something they don't have the right to do. E-meters are hard physical items that are subject to the right of first sale doctrine. There is no copyright violation going on with their resale. Likewise, there should be nothing wrong with people reselling original copies of CoS literature provided they aren't bound by a contract that says otherwise.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
You shouldn't talk of things about which you are ignorant.
There almost certainly was a historical Buddha. There is far more evidence for this, from independent sources, than for (e.g.) Socrates.
And FYI, the Buddha never said he was anything but a normal man. In fact, he stated again and again that he was just that -- not some kind of a God or superbeing.
Well, I am pretty sure Microsoft has never starved anyone, then sued the coroner for slander until she ruled the death was an accident (google lisa McPherson), or launched an attack against mental health organizations to discredit them in the eyes of their employees
Psychiatrists did the holocaust!!! (seriously,watch the BBC Panorama on Scientology, they believe that, they claim it, PUBLICLY)
eBay has long since decided to deputize any company that feels like signing papers with complete and unfettered access to eBay. Anyone that signs a "legally binding document" can then gain power to delete any auction from eBay for whatever reason they feel like. If it's because of counterfeit or provably stolen product, that's fine, but eBay's history of repudiating first sale has really gotten tiring.
Try reselling Weight Watchers program materials. They get deleted on a regular basis because Weight Watchers doesn't like it if you resell them. There's no legal basis for this, and if you push the issue with eBay, the response you get is "Well, they said they don't want you selling them, so too bad." They tell you to "take it up with Weight Watchers" who says "We say you can't sell them, and that's that."
VeRO is a bullshit program that lets eBay wash their hands of legitimate issues on the site and that gives companies ridiculously too much power. Do you think that if I set up a stand at a flea market reselling legally acquired materials, that the flea market owners would stand for the publisher of those materials walking around with a rubber hose and yanking the items away if I tried to sell them?
This isn't news, hopefully this just pushes VeRO into the public eye and convinces eBay to get rid of it, or to force "rights owners" (I wasn't aware that a "right to prevent resale" existed) to actually file individual complaints based on some sort of legal theory to delist an item, not just "We don't want these resold." Scn is abusing it like they abuse everything else, but this system seems to be made specifically to facilitate abuse.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/ Including how to make your own!
Fraud and abuse? Well, no Scientology discussion can be complete without a link to Bare Faced Messiah, the unauthorised biography of L. Ron Hubbard. It is very interesting stuff. The man lived recently enough that there are plenty of verifiable historical facts about him, and he was certainly an extraordinary guy.
Any Scientologists reading this topic have no doubt already heard about Bare Faced Messiah and the lies contained within it, invented (of course) by the Church's enemies in order to discredit Hubbard and his ideas. To you I say: what if your perception of reality is wrong? What if you have been lied to, that a sort of Matrix has been built around you by your friends and colleagues at the Church? Wouldn't you at least like to see what other people's reality looks like? No need to take any pills, the truth might be a click away...
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
eBay's counternotification policy for VeRO takedowns applies only to claims of copyright infringement. (Read the page you linked to.) Scientology is using bogus trademark infringement claims to take down E-meter listings. Therefore, counternotification is not available.
Your brain is not a computer.
If you want a good laugh, these 2 sites offer a run down on their beliefs:
http://www.xenu.net/
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/index2.html
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
No, because case precedent says there are certain rights you can't legally sign away. Slavery and your life are included in that. They are deemed rights which you can't legally waive. Ever. (*)
No, because the contract is prima facie invalid -- meaning, it wasn't ever a valid contract, so trying to enforce the terms of said contract is meaningless.
Cheers
(*) There could be some place where you could, but that place shares no legal history with us.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What is your problem? The Fishman Affidavit is a court document, that's not a good enough cite for you that L. Ron Hubbard actually said that Jesus likes little boys? Or did you not bother to read (or not comprehend) the website and assumed the poster was bashing your favorite fairy tale?
Let me be perfectly clear then: Scientology makes the claim, in their official religious literature, that Jesus was a homosexual pedophile. That is backed up by court records.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Correct.
And things like rising from an untimely death after being nailed to a cross (or tree) three days after dying (and then celebrating), having a last supper, being born of a virgin, being the son of a god, etc... were all prevalent beliefs of pagan mythology at the time of and well before Jesus. A guy who had these "myths" thrown upon his name decades after he was dead in order to start a religion.
People forget that the history of most religions are far more "earth-bound" than they like to realize...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Unsupported, eh? You're an idiot. These are very, very well-known.
If you don't believe it, do some research. A quick google search reveals these links to be informative:
http://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Other-Essays-Freethought-Library/dp/0879758333
http://web.archive.org/web/20000520040242/http://www.wels.net/sab/text/qa/qa15.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20021019195356/http://www.worldmissions.org/Clipper/Holidays/EasterAndAsherah.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jckr1.htm
The summary states that "The Church of Scientology can delete auctions from eBay with no supervision under the VeRO program," but even according to the linked article this is not the case. The removals are taking place through the VeRO program, they're just contending that the removals are frivolous. As if that weren't enough, the title states that Scientology has been given direct access to the database. Going from frivolous removals to unfettered access to eBay's DB is a pretty ridiculous leap, and seems disengenous on the part of the original poster.
Having once worked at eBay (I quit in late '07) in association with people on the VeRO team, I can tell you that direct access to the DB is not required to get an item off the site very quickly; it is quite easy for rights-holders to get items they claim to be infringing removed... all it takes is a single qualifying complaint (per item while I was there, but they may allow lists now).
A couple of notes about VeRO compaints, however:
1- The complaint is made under penalty of perjury, which creates some potential for liability for frivolous or incorrect complaints on the part of the complainant (potentially difficult to take legal action on, but present).
2- It is a complaint of IP (Intellectual Property) infringement, not simply copyright infringement. That's why items that are sold from an organization for a specific use, and whose resale is legally limited, can be said to infringe if they are being used/sold in a way inconsistent with the IP owner's wishes.
3- There is an appeals process, and the item can potentially get put back on the site.
For an overview of the process, you can go to this page eBay provides to explain it: http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/vero-rights-owner.html
If you'd like to see a copy of the notice that VeRO members (registered IP owners) must send to get things removed, then download this PDF (also linked from the priorly mentioned page): http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/NOCI1.pdf
the correct word here is "pederast", however, your words will do as some people wouldn't know what pederasty was unless they actually went and looked it up...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Allow me to speak from experience - VERO is pretty much useless as a method for evil companies to enforce despotic control over the masses. In terms of furthering my nefarious plans for World Domination, it's been a total bust.
EBay hosts many auctions of bootlegs of many of the films (anime, samurai stuff) for which my company, AnimEigo, is the US licensor (turning you all into malleable Otaku will definitely get me closer to the aforementioned end-state of World Domination). At one point, we tried using VERO to cancel these auctions. It was a total waste of time.
1) After being VERO'd, the bootleg vendor would simply put up another auction. It was a game of whack-a-mole, and they had more time to play than I did. The time I wasted -- I could have spent it on the Orbital Mind Control Lasers.
2) The serious bootleg vendors would simply contest the VERO. At which point the rights-holder has to provide documentation that demonstrates that the property infringes their rights. And that, folks, takes time and money -- and I need that money, do you guys have any idea how expensive it is to build and maintain a Secret Lair?
So my advice to people who want to sell E-Meters is to contest the VERO; it requires only 10 minutes of your time filling out a form and faxing it off, and will cost the COS a considerable amount of money to take to the next step. Now, they may decide that it's worth it to them to do that, but hey, that's money they can't spend on other things - and keep in mind that for them, World Domination is a serious business, not just a hobby like it is for me.
The real point of VERO is to protect eBay from lawsuits by rights-holders.
"World Domination - a fun, family activity"
OT III
[Operating Thetan Level 3]
BODY THETANS
by L. Ron Hubbard
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet - 178 billion on average) by mass implanting..
He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken - in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc was placed in the unplants. When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert.
The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development. One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 1 know someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing.
You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error.
Good luck.
* * *
For the purpose of clarity, by BODY THETAN is meant a thetan who is stuck to another thetan or body but is not in control.
A THETAN is, of course, a Scientology word using the Greek theta which was the Greek symbol for thought or life. An individual being such as a man is a thetan, he is not a body and he does not think because he has a brain.
A CLUSTER is a group of body thetans crushed or hold together by some mutual bad experience.
----------
Character of Body Thetans
Body Thetans are just Thetans. When you get rid of one he goes off and possibly squares around, picks up a body or admires daisies. He is in fact a sort of cleared Being. He cannot fail to eventually, if not at once, regain many abilities. Many have been asleep for the last 75,000,000 years. A body Thetan responds to any process any Thetan responds to.
Some body Thetans are suppressive. A suppressive is out of valence in R6. He is in valence in Incident I almost always.
One can't run a human being on these two incidents since human beings are composites and would not be able to run the lot. Aside from that, non-clears are way below awareness required to even find these Incidents.
Huge amounts of charge have already been removed from the case and the body thetans by Clearing and OT I and OT II to say nothing of engrams and lower grades.
Awareness is proportional to the charge removed from the case.
Although a human is a composite being there is only one I (that is you) who runs things.
Body thetans just hold one back.
You will continue to be you. You, inside, can of course separate out body thetans and so solo auditing is the answer. How good do you have to be to run body thetans off? Well, if you didn't skip your grades, Clearing and OT II particularly, you. should be able to'command body thetans easily.
* * *
Incident II is over 36 days long. Capture on other planets was weeks or months before the implant. Tho