VeRO - Articles - Editorial - Does eBay really understand the big picture?

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Source: http://www.auctionusers.org/newsletter/0103-editorial.shtml
June 8, 2003. - Content is unaltered. Advertising, links and such has been removed.

Visitors to Atlantic City Beach should know that the city had to pay over $1 million to bring the sand you see here from Newark. This is because the original sand eroded. Judging from the reaction to an auction of Atlantic City Beach Sand, the city is ready to prosecute visitors for each grain of sand removed from the beach. That includes any sand that remains on your foot, shoe, towel, child's sand bucket or toy or any other personal property. If these fines and penalties seem exorbitant, consider the cost of the alternative ...
visiting their casinos.

Editorial

Does eBay really understand the big picture?

eBay is a franchise of users that have come together almost miraculously to create the most dynamic consumer-to-consumer marketplace the world has ever known. This very franchise is based on the individuals' right to own and dispose of their owned property as they see fit -- the rights of the owner to property being the most basic of tenants.

What was unique about this marketplace when it started was that success was largely based on merit ... the number of positive feed backs one had ... how well one presented their goods for sale ... the quality of the good itself. Those with disabilities, those who live in small towns, those who had passion and knowledge of a product were the one's who succeeded.

Their success became eBay's success. Sure, with eBay now being a public corporate entity, things have changed. It is only natural that they will seek to increase their percentage take of the average transaction (despite their existing gross margin on each sale which, according to their initial IPO was something like 90 percent.) Wall Street must be fed and if this were the issue it would be easily understandable and forgivable.

But the issue is not just that.

eBay seems willing to go far beyond their natural business interests to the point of acting with a subtle and fundamental antagonism toward their customers basic property rights.

Some of the restrictions imposed are legitimate -- human organs and live animals for instance. Close to being obnoxious is the presumption that the verified rights owners are always right and with that presumption, the fact their allegations will be acted upon without question.

Despite these concerns, there was always the understanding that eBay was simply reacting to outside forces. That has now changed.

The news this week is that eBay itself will start policing its auctions for possible counterfeit software by itself and of its own accord. First, no one condones or supports those who would counterfeit software or otherwise steal intellectual property. That is not the issue here. The issue here is that eBay is providing a proactive "police patrol" service to the software publishers for free.

Traditionally it is up to the owners of intellectual property to protect their property. Rarely, if ever, do third parties take an active, much less aggressive role, in protecting another's interest ... especially for free. I mean the attorney's that press the case of Adobe or Microsoft over misuse of trademarked names and other elements of IP law certainly don't do those services for free. Even your local police, unless they are informed and educated on the issue, are unlikely to aggressively search out trademark or software piracy without a direct and specific complaint by a citizen.

So it is surprising to me that eBay has now become top cop searching their online auctions for potential violations of these third party's products FOR FREE.

Certainly the legal interests of the software publishers are largely addressed by the existing VeRO program at eBay. It really is a simple task to key in a few key-words like Adobe and CDR and see if questionable items come up. Any publisher or distributor of software, from the comfort of their home or office, can use eBay's automated shopper to do so. The VeRO program provides a procedure where auctions or listings are summarily ended upon notification of the alleged infringement. eBay is certainly cooperative when it comes to turning names and other contact information over to the VeRO if they seek to use that information in conjunction with a formal complaint to the police.

The truth is in-house monitoring and enforcement of VeRO infringement is not only available but it is cheap and easy thanks to eBay and the Internet. The difference in cost of policing counterfeiting operations on eBay is dramatically less than even the travel costs incurred shopping hundreds of flea markets on country mountain tops nationwide.

eBay ought to get an award from the software publishers for simplifying the task of monitoring violations in their industry. At the very least, the software publishers should pay eBay for the 'police patrols' they now perform. Certainly, as a generally disinterested seller of other things on eBay, charging the software publishers for that service sure beats charging me and you and everyone else!

And that, frankly, is the crux of the matter.

eBay, for what ever reason, is taking money from every day users and in turn using those funds to protect the special interests of a specific class of user. Add to the fact that eBay's decision to pro-actively police the site with no oversight or transparency of their operations and I start to get really nervous.

Said another way I believe that eBay could become a much more pro-consumer institution than it is today and such a move would be ultimately rewarded by consumers. It may sound almost trite, but why doesn't eBay become the champion of consumers interested in maintaining their rights to buy, sell or barter personal property. Why have they chosen, instead, to establish a private police force designed to secretly protect the rights of a certain class of seller?

Look around at the laws being written and the court decisions rendered and once quickly understands that individual rights in personal property are under severe attack. Indeed, some industries -- the software industry to name one -- have a far-reaching agenda that includes severely limiting or outright elimination of the purchasers' right of resale.

Of course, if those in the software industry were to actually succeed the software categories on eBay would simply no longer exist.

eBay should not have ended this auction.

Another, almost laughable example involves the ending of the auction for a jar of "Atlantic City Beach Sand" at the request of local authorities.

Anyone familiar with the story would know that Atlantic City had recently paid well over a million dollars to bring in sand to improve its deteriorating and eroding beach. It somehow incensed the local powers that someone had the audacity to sell a pound of that sand on eBay. An officer with the city intervened and had the auction cancelled.

So what?

First, a mayonnaise-jar full of sand, which obviously came from elsewhere originally, is not going to so impact Atlantic City's beach that 1,000 imitators (a single pickup truck load only half filled with sand because of weight) would force a crisis on the beach.

Second, the erosion crisis regarding Atlantic City Beach has everything to do with the rising ocean which is due to environmental factors far removed from demand for sand on eBay.

eBay should not have ended that auction as killing it was just not the "American" thing to do.

The right thing to do was to proclaim that eBay believes that citizens have inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, if it makes a citizen happy to own, collect, buy and sell sand from various beaches from California to Rio to Atlantic City, eBay would stand tall by that seller and would not itself infringe upon that freedom. Notably, the seller has warranted the property offered was legally obtained and legally theirs and without any specific evidence contrary to that, eBay simply has no authority to suspend the auction. If Atlantic City has a problem with how the seller acquired the sand, they have all the police powers needed to rectify that wrong.

But by never fighting even a good battle for those rights -- especially those battles that they can win such as that over the Atlantic City Sand -- eBay is contributing to the slow erosion of the very property rights their entire business is based upon.

That is foolish and makes no sense. eBay should be the champion of property rights; not a subtle partner for their destruction.

G. Patton Hughes

The above are the opinions of the author and do not represent, nor should they be construed to represent the position or policies of the Online Auction Users Association. Comments: email neomax@neomax.com or neomax@auctionusers.org

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