eBay's mentality is such that they want to be perceived as doing it better and cleaner than their competitors. Being the largest Net auction site everyone is going to want to take a shot at them. Blocking the Adults Only section from Australian residents is both an attempt to be appearing to do the right thing by the "community" and also to make sure that their arse is so clean that not even a hint of litigation comes their way. The laws were, and are still, a little hazy with regards to who is responsible for the content. It only takes one High Court judge, as has happened in France, to make an ill informed decision and eBay's in a whole lot of hurt.
This will certainly make an interesting case for other online auction style businesses, especially eBay.
Currently eBay US has a policy with regards to potentially offensive material, which says in part: "eBay has always exercised judgment in allowing or disallowing certain listings in the best interest of the community. Therefore, eBay will judiciously disallow listings or items that promote hatred, violence, or racial intolerance, including items that promote organizations (such as the KKK, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Skinheads, Aryan Nation) with such views. eBay will review listings that are brought to its attention by the community, and will look at the entire listing to determine whether it falls within this rule.
eBay recognizes that some older relics of organizations that promoted hate, violence or racial intolerance are legitimate collectible items that serve as a reminder of past injustices or horrors. Obviously, the past cannot be erased, and such relics can serve as important reminders and educational tools in a community that can learn from the past. Therefore, relics of groups such as the KKK or Nazi Germany may be listed on eBay, provided that they are at least 50 years old, and the listing is not used as a platform to glorify or promote the organization or its values. Listings of such items that are not 50 years old will be removed when brought to our attention. Sellers must state the approximate age of the item within the description. "
Therefore if the item is over 50 years old and has historical value it is OK to be listed on eBay. I know for a fact, as an eBay employee, that all Nazi memorabillia is banned from being listed on the eBay Germany site and eBay members who are registered as living in Germany are actively blocked from bidding on such items, irrelevant of which eBay site they are listed on.
The actively blocking users is the same for the eBay Adults Only section. Any member who has registered as living in Australia, is unable to access the eBay Adults Only section, whether they are willing to provide age verification or not. This policy helps eBay to comply with other countrys' laws outside of the US. The eBay Australia site simply does not have an Adults Only sections.
So technically it is certainly possbile to block certain users, living in a particular geographic region, from certain areas of the site.
This ruling will certainly prove interesting for eBay as they are planning further international expansion into Europe in the near future, including one particularly relevant nation.
Alternatively you could look at me on my TL1000 and think, "Gee I wish I could take him.";-)
The only reason I ask is that in Sydney (Australia that is) the only other geek I know who rides a bike is my neighbour and she only got one after she got sick of me doubling her everywhere.
I have often wondered whether many other geeks are into fast motorbikes. I don't mean big, slow, Harley Davidson chopper pieces of crap. Rather exceptionally fast Italian, British or Japanese machines.
I love my fast bikes, especially good in city traffic when you just have to get to the computer store before closing. Or even better out on the open road with nothing but highway patrol officers between you and 200km/hour.
Do many geeks ride motorbikes ?
Re:I don't know about you...
on
Happy Odd Day!
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· Score: 1
I don't want horrific scenes of teen sex. I want the good quality, high res stuff. I'm going to have to change my choice of MP3 site.
What's so horrific about teen sex anyway ?
They must be doing it all wrong....
Re:Installing is no longer the problem
on
CNN Installs Linux
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· Score: 1
I agree entirely. Over the last three years or so I have installed Slackware, FreeBSD, RedHat and Debian in that order. All the installations have gone relatively smoothly. The really hard bits come after the install.
OK, now we have an OS installed. Now let's do something with it - buwmpbow (insert Wheel of Fortune Bankrupt sound)
Basically I always ended up fdisking the hard drive and going back to Windows. Why you may ask ? Well it wasn't a lack of patience, more like a lack of prodctivity. I have never seriously owned more than one working machine, and always needed that to be available for productivity. Sure, sure partition the hard drive I hear you cry - then I run out of disk space.
What I need is a pre-installed Linux box. Here's your word processor, spreadsheet, database, email client, web browser and net connection. Go hard or go home.
Well the only real difference to an IPO and buying shares on any stock exchange is that : (a) You are buying the shares direct from the company wishing to list, as it has never traded on that particular exchange before - there are no shares available on the general market. (b) Because of this, you don't pay any brokerage and you are usually guaranteed the stock listing ( opening ) at a price higher than that it was issued to you at. This is known as a "Stag Profit" - the cause of which is that there will be many investors who don't get the full allocation of shares that they applied for. Demand > Supply.
The general rule of thumb is to get your hands on a Prospectus ( application) and return it to the company or their Share Registry asap, no matter what is said in the media - First in Best Dressed.
Also if you know that demand will be strong for the stock and / or the prospectus sets out a certain minimum number of shares that each applicant will be either guaranteed of being allocated - this will usually mean that all applications will be scaled back. This means that if you applied for 2000 shares, you may only be allocated 1000 - which means that your application was scaled back by 50%, this will usually be done across theboard.
To overcome this, there will be usually more than one application form in each prospectus. Fill in as many as you can, with variations of your name and address. This will hopefully come up as two different investors on the Registry and hence you will be allocated two lots of the minmum allocation.
The reason that more people do not get into IPO's is a matter of Education, Finance and Laziness. Education - people are becoming more familiar with the workings of the markets however haven't been as such in the past. Finance - sometimes the minimum number of shares that one is able to apply multiplied buy the issue price can amount to a substanial sum of money, many haven't got this lying about. Laziness - can't be bothered ringing around and chasing an application (Prospectus) as they are usually in short supply and many people give up before even trying.
When the stock of an IPO lists ( debut ) on the market, people that missed out being allocated some shares through the application process will try and purchase some, this will drive the price up again Demand > Supply.
If one was to sell some stock that they were allocated thru the application process in an attempt to realise the "Stag Profit" ( rather than hold the stock long term ) they would sell the stock, on what is known as a Deferred Delivery Basis. This will be the case because the Share Registry will not yet have sent out Holding Statements to those applicants that were successful in the IPO. This means that the seller cannot provide proof of their Holding, and the only way to find out your allocation is to ring the registry direct.
However if this seller was to live in another country, they would need to arrange the sale through a Broker that has a licence to Trade Stocks in the country of the IPO.
Can the company really do anything in regards to the content of inbound email ? Is the user liable for the contents of inbound email or only the stuff they send out ?
I used to work for ZDNet Australia (http://www.zdnet.com.au), until I saw the error of my ways, and a piece of trivial information for you all is that their Web server is Apache, run on a FreeBSD box.
yepp seems to have more features than the Rio, especially with the little optional extra that allows for MP3 creation directly from audio equipment without the need for a PC. But the Rio has more playback time (1 hour) compared to 40mins for the yepp Series D I was merely a mouse click away from ordering a Rio this morning...... What to do, what to do.
Slashdot Mirror
eBay's mentality is such that they want to be perceived as doing it better and cleaner than their competitors.
Being the largest Net auction site everyone is going to want to take a shot at them. Blocking the Adults Only section from Australian residents is both an attempt to be appearing to do the right thing by the "community" and also to make sure that their arse is so clean that not even a hint of litigation comes their way.
The laws were, and are still, a little hazy with regards to who is responsible for the content. It only takes one High Court judge, as has happened in France, to make an ill informed decision and eBay's in a whole lot of hurt.
Currently eBay US has a policy with regards to potentially offensive material, which says in part:
"eBay has always exercised judgment in allowing or disallowing certain listings in the best interest of the community. Therefore, eBay will judiciously disallow listings or items that promote hatred, violence, or racial intolerance, including items that promote organizations (such as the KKK, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Skinheads, Aryan Nation) with such views. eBay will review listings that are brought to its attention by the community, and will look at the entire listing to determine whether it falls within this rule.
eBay recognizes that some older relics of organizations that promoted hate, violence or racial intolerance are legitimate collectible items that serve as a reminder of past injustices or horrors. Obviously, the past cannot be erased, and such relics can serve as important reminders and educational tools in a community that can learn from the past. Therefore, relics of groups such as the KKK or Nazi Germany may be listed on eBay, provided that they are at least 50 years old, and the listing is not used as a platform to glorify or promote the organization or its values. Listings of such items that are not 50 years old will be removed when brought to our attention. Sellers must state the approximate age of the item within the description. "
(Found at: http://pages.ebay.com/help/ community/png-offensive.html)
Therefore if the item is over 50 years old and has historical value it is OK to be listed on eBay. I know for a fact, as an eBay employee, that all Nazi memorabillia is banned from being listed on the eBay Germany site and eBay members who are registered as living in Germany are actively blocked from bidding on such items, irrelevant of which eBay site they are listed on.
The actively blocking users is the same for the eBay Adults Only section. Any member who has registered as living in Australia, is unable to access the eBay Adults Only section, whether they are willing to provide age verification or not. This policy helps eBay to comply with other countrys' laws outside of the US. The eBay Australia site simply does not have an Adults Only sections.
So technically it is certainly possbile to block certain users, living in a particular geographic region, from certain areas of the site.
This ruling will certainly prove interesting for eBay as they are planning further international expansion into Europe in the near future, including one particularly relevant nation.
And this is not even mentioning the fact that they had to get bailed out of two world wars by an ex-colony.
Yeah, the Australians did a pretty good job in both wars, didn't they ?
There's a site here in Australia that not only reviews mobile phones, but also the major carriers, their packages and service.
Try:
http://www.phonechoice.com.au
The Spanish Inquisition.
Yeah, and all these recent articles are making my decision whether to accept an offer of a permenant job in the US all that much easier.
Alternatively you could look at me on my TL1000 and think, "Gee I wish I could take him." ;-)
The only reason I ask is that in Sydney (Australia that is) the only other geek I know who rides a bike is my neighbour and she only got one after she got sick of me doubling her everywhere.
*Imported, Italian motorcycles.
Yes please!!
I have often wondered whether many other geeks are into fast motorbikes. I don't mean big, slow, Harley Davidson chopper pieces of crap. Rather exceptionally fast Italian, British or Japanese machines.
I love my fast bikes, especially good in city traffic when you just have to get to the computer store before closing. Or even better out on the open road with nothing but highway patrol officers between you and 200km/hour.
Do many geeks ride motorbikes ?
Thank you Joseph Heller.
I don't want horrific scenes of teen sex. I want the good quality, high res stuff. I'm going to have to change my choice of MP3 site.
What's so horrific about teen sex anyway ?
They must be doing it all wrong....
I agree entirely. Over the last three years or so I have installed Slackware, FreeBSD, RedHat and Debian in that order. All the installations have gone relatively smoothly. The really hard bits come after the install.
OK, now we have an OS installed. Now let's do something with it - buwmpbow (insert Wheel of Fortune Bankrupt sound)
Basically I always ended up fdisking the hard drive and going back to Windows. Why you may ask ? Well it wasn't a lack of patience, more like a lack of prodctivity. I have never seriously owned more than one working machine, and always needed that to be available for productivity. Sure, sure partition the hard drive I hear you cry - then I run out of disk space.
What I need is a pre-installed Linux box. Here's your word processor, spreadsheet, database, email client, web browser and net connection. Go hard or go home.
Well the only real difference to an IPO and buying shares on any stock
exchange is that :
(a) You are buying the shares direct from the company wishing to list, as it has never traded on that particular exchange before - there are no shares available on the general market.
(b) Because of this, you don't pay any brokerage and you are usually guaranteed the stock listing ( opening ) at a price higher than that it was
issued to you at. This is known as a "Stag Profit" - the cause of which is that there will be many investors who don't get the full allocation of shares that they applied for. Demand > Supply.
The general rule of thumb is to get your hands on a Prospectus ( application) and return it to the company or their Share Registry asap, no matter what is said in the media - First in Best Dressed.
Also if you know that demand will be strong for the stock and / or the prospectus sets out a certain minimum number of shares that each applicant will be either guaranteed of being allocated - this will usually mean that
all applications will be scaled back. This means that if you applied for 2000 shares, you may only be allocated 1000 - which means that your
application was scaled back by 50%, this will usually be done across theboard.
To overcome this, there will be usually more than one application form in each prospectus. Fill in as many as you can, with variations of your name
and address. This will hopefully come up as two different investors on the Registry and hence you will be allocated two lots of the minmum allocation.
The reason that more people do not get into IPO's is a matter of Education, Finance and Laziness. Education - people are becoming more familiar with the workings of the markets however haven't been as such in the past.
Finance - sometimes the minimum number of shares that one is able to apply multiplied buy the issue price can amount to a substanial sum of money, many haven't got this lying about.
Laziness - can't be bothered ringing around and chasing an application (Prospectus) as they are usually in short supply and many people give up
before even trying.
When the stock of an IPO lists ( debut ) on the market, people that missed out being allocated some shares through the application process will try and purchase some, this will drive the price up again Demand > Supply.
If one was to sell some stock that they were allocated thru the application process in an attempt to realise the "Stag Profit" ( rather than hold the stock long term ) they would sell the stock, on what is known as a Deferred
Delivery Basis. This will be the case because the Share Registry will not yet have sent out Holding Statements to those applicants that were successful in the IPO. This means that the seller cannot provide proof of their Holding, and the only way to find out your allocation is to ring the registry direct.
However if this seller was to live in another country, they would need to arrange the sale through a Broker that has a licence to Trade Stocks in the country of the IPO.
Here endth the lecture.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
Can the company really do anything in regards to the content of inbound email ? Is the user liable for the contents of inbound email or only the stuff they send out ?
I can't believe you guys actually went outside for this.
Linux on the Psion, now we are really cookin'. /. effect.
Pity the ftp server appears to be suffering a minor stroke due to the
I used to work for ZDNet Australia (http://www.zdnet.com.au), until I saw the error of my ways, and a piece of trivial information for you all is that their Web server is Apache, run on a FreeBSD box.
yepp seems to have more features than the Rio, especially with the little optional extra that allows for MP3 creation directly from audio equipment without the need for a PC. But the Rio has more playback time (1 hour) compared to 40mins for the yepp Series D
I was merely a mouse click away from ordering a Rio this morning......
What to do, what to do.