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Scientology Given Direct Access To eBay Database

Posted by kdawson on from the finger-on-the-scale dept.

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?"

6 of 684 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is this legal? by Arthur+B. · · Score: 0, Troll

    I guess they don't sell it but lease if for perpetuity for a fixed fee. Same with some cable decoders I think. It's perfectly fine that the Scientology prevents its member from reselling the stuff. As for ebay, should they abuse the power, their would be probably be a complaint and they'd be in serious trouble. Much a do about nothing. For the record, the scientologist are a bunch of manipulative people with crazy ideas. They feed on stupidity which is fairly abundant.

    --
    \u262D = \u5350
  2. Re:I hope that's just blustering... by Khyber · · Score: 0, Troll

    No, I just don't give a fuck. What's the law going to do? I just opened 5,000 various auctions in my Firefox browser and set them to auto-refresh at the same time. The fact that their servers couldn't stand up to a simulation of 5,000 people clicking 'refresh' at the same time doesn't constitute a violation of law. The key word in the sentence is 'TRIED' not 'successfully carried out'

    The law's tried it before anyways. I run rings around them every time, simpyly because most judges aren't smart enough to know what they're trying to charge me for.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  3. Re:My guess is... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wonder how the EU is doing with the CoS? Last I heard some member nations were refusing to recognize them as a religion.
    Which is silly. Why not recognise them as a religion, and then move to treat all religions with the respect they deserve, which is to say none at all. Scientologists may be a bit sillier in their beliefs and the way they treat their members than other mainstream religions, but not a great deal.

    Maybe I'm putting it a bit harsher than I should, but I think none of these religions deserve the privileged status they enjoy in so many countries.
    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  4. Re:this = Scientology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    But the jews have been guilty of racketeering and corruption throughout history... better make sure nobody tries to exterminate the Scientologists or they will end up occupying some poor nation with the blessing of the US.

  5. Re:My guess is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You may be interested in the phenomenon of Anonymous--a sort of movement that has coalesced to fight against the abuses of the Church of Scientology. ... I've been keeping track of Anonymous for some time--they seem to be the origin of many of the various memes that end up getting popular, so they seem to work well as a sort of miner's canary when discerning the opinion of the internet in general. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that this particular phenomenon has occurred--an internet movement that has had significant international effect in the real world. What makes it even more interesting is that it -has no leaders-. Somehow, out of total anarchy, it's managed to coalesce a sort of identity to itself, and has directed attention towards a single goal. ... IIRC, one of the Anonymous-sponsored websites is youfoundthecard.com; it's worth looking into. You seem to be confusing Anonymous the entity and anonymous the phenomenon. The phenomenon is what happens when you post something funny anonymously on the internet, people laugh and repost it elsewhere. Where did it come from? anonymous posted it. The entity (although it isn't entirely one entity but it is more of an entity than they pretend) is an attempt to moderate anonymous the phenomenon. Their goal appears to be the control of a large enough group of people such that they can affect an even larger group of people through a sort of crowd effect. Post a picture of a dog that was killed with a chainsaw and say its funny, have the other members of Anonymous post as well and claim its funny too, eventually non members agree that its funny and show it to their friends and it propagates out and becomes funny. In practice the people orchestrating Anonymous discovered what is actually a simplistic form of this and are only using it for destruction. They have NO concept of how to accurately utilize this and the only times it works out it is almost by pure chance, all they are doing is increasing the chances of something working out. They like to portray themselves as a "Stand Alone Complex" (ala ghost in the shell). However that is not what they are. As much as I would like to see them succeed in the fight against Scientology, they are ultimately doomed to fail for the same reason countless others have failed. Scientologists know what they are doing. Most people believe they do everything to keep their brainwashed checked, I believe they are doing it for another unseen purpose. Anonymous believes they understand what they are doing however all they have is a piece of the puzzle. It is taking them way too many insiders to control way to small a group of outsiders. Scientology is primarily composed of outsiders. There are very few actual insiders at the top the majority controlled by Scientology are actually outsiders to the controlling group and yet they are controlled as if they are all on the inside. Anonymous can battle Scientology all they want but they'll never actually coalesce enough to achieve their goal with Scientology.
  6. Re:Don't tell Chef but by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: -1, Troll

    I thought making fun of religions was not allowed because it was insensitive and intolerant ?

    Or perhaps it's just one religion that can't be made fun of ... the really insensitive and intolerant one ... and you're in denial about that fact so saying that all religions can't be made fun of feels good. So as to disguise your complete cowardice, you invent this tolerance principle, and then fail to uphold it. Given the score on your post, many people her suffer from this delusion.

    Do you know how muslims measure religious sentiment ? With the bodycount.