EBay Pressured To Block Sales of Ivory Products

RickRussellTX writes "eBay is being pressured by an animal welfare group to ban sales of ivory and animal tooth products on its site. Although eBay is in compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species when it warns users that such postings may be inviolation of national and international law, the International Fund for Animal Welfare is demanding that they go a step further to search for and delete any posting of ivory products."

Comments

Have these people never taken an economics course?

[R2.0]

Where there is a demand, someone will supply, and a market will spring up. Perhaps eBay should get out on moral grounds, but if these folks think it will make a dent in the trade, they are naive.

Pianos

[alexander_686]

Well then - how am I going to sell my old piano then?

Re:Have these people never taken an economics cour

[KDR_11k]

Yeah but black markets exist already and for many people the desire to possess such an item is not large enough to get involved with the black market.

So...

[Otter]

Reading the story, it doesn't seem like there's a single demonstrated case of illegal ivory sale on EBay, just a lot of numbers being thrown around about ivory sales overall.

Re:Have these people never taken an economics cour

[Candid88]

So just because there's no magic bullet everyone should just let them do it unimpeded?

Same for drugs, kiddie-porn and nuke warhead sales?

With that mentality, why bother doing anything which isn't easily accomplished in one small step!

Re:It's Forbidden Everywhere else

[Z34107]

They're not exempted from this - I haven't read the article yet (of course) but it says ebay follows all of the laws.

This group wants them to go not sell any Ivory - no antiques, pianos, etc. Nothing. Even if it's perfectly legal.

Next will be any fur and leather products. Stay tuned!

Re:It's Forbidden Everywhere else

[Bayoudegradeable]

Not going for flamebait here... What if I have a pair of antique ivory chopsticks bought a long, long time ago and I wish to sell them on eBay to a U.S. customer? That is legal, correct? So why punish all of us wishing to use eBay for legal purposes? Wait, I can get drugs, prostitutes and many other illegal goods and services, so shut the whole thing down? Stopping people from legitimate uses in order to halt illegal ones seems to be a slippery slope. I am actually all for stopping modern trade in modern ivory, but to ban something the law allows sounds like censorship to appease a cause.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The more serious issue

[RickRussellTX]

(Disclaimer: I'm the OP.)

The issue that bothers me, and it has nothing to do with elephants or ivory, is that eBay is merely a silent broker in these transactions. Could you realistically expect the relevant carriers of information to ban exchanges of ivory arranged over e-mail? Over postal mail? The telephone? At swap meets?

eBay has built the smoothest, most liquid, easiest-to-use method of arranging private sales between geographically disparate private parties. That results in transaction volume that far exceeds the capability of any single person to review it (and read TFA and you'll see that even IFAW built its statistics by doing the most basic text searches -- they didn't actually try to verify anything).

Organizations that like to tell people what to do and get themselves in the news, like the IFAW, hate such liquid markets. They want all transactions involving their particular interest to be monitored, filtered, verified, etc. Even though they are not willing to do it themselves.

So if we monitor, filter, and verify transactions involving ivory, where do we stop? Do we ever stop? Does private enterprise go away and get replaced by "monitored and certified enterprise"?

They're just trolling.

[Shotgun]

The International Fund for Animal Welfare is just trolling for attention. It's a tried and true technique. Attack a large and popular entity and charge them with the responsibility of handling your pet project to save the world.

How about this "International Fund for Animal Welfare"? Instead of bitching real loud, how about you bid for the ivory, then tell the sellers that you will pick it up. Show up at the seller's door with law enforcement.

Oh, I see. That doesn't get you free advertisement for your fund raising efforts.

Re:Have these people never taken an economics cour

[poptones]

Where you gonna get a nuke warhead?

For the rest of your stupid argument - yes. Kiddie porn is already made, and drugs fall under "my body, my right."

eBay Needs a Competitor

[Nom du Keyboard]

eBay needs a competitor who is willing to sell all the things eBay won't (lawfully acquired ivory, concert and sporting tickets of all types, legal second-hand copies of AutoCad, Scientology e-meters), along with everything else. Also one who takes payments other than PayPal. Someone like that ought to eventually eat eBay's lunch.