Subject:
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Don Quixote puts away his lance (was Re: McDonalds set
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general, lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Mon, 27 Sep 1999 14:21:16 GMT
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Reply-To:
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[lpieniazek@novera.]AntiSpam[com]
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Viewed:
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29 times
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Just to close the loop on this....
I got an email from someone in eBay administration. They told me I had
been reported for bid siphoning and that eBay position on posting
neutral feedback with information on where the item is available is that
it is indeed bid siphoning.
I don't agree but that's irrelevant.
Someone from eBay, a duly authorized representative, to be specific, has
told me to stop on pain of losing my membership. Since I wish to
continue to bid there, I have no choice but to comply. eBay is well
within their rights to restrict or require members regarding any action
they choose to that's otherwise lawful. I may not agree with their
choices but that's the way the market works.
eBay cannot restrict the flow of information from people who are not
members. However, if you're not a member, you can't even determine the
email addresses of those who are bidding, unless the bidder uses their
email address as their ID. So your options there are limited.
I could easily technically defeat eBay restrictions by creating an ID
that was registered, using it to determine the email addresses of
bidders, and mailing them, and it would be extremely unlikely that it
would be detected by eBay. However, under the TOS interpretation a duly
authorised representative of eBay has given me, that is a violation of
TOS, whether detected or not. Therefore I cannot do so and be true to my
morals.
Saving hapless bidders from being foolish may be fun, but it's not fun
enough to compromise morals.
I *have* asked the rep who communicated with me if it is their intent to
foster an imbalance in information available with sellers holding a
vastly superior hand. We will see what (or if, it's a pretty deep
question) the answer is.
This thread has been in .general, but if we go deeply into the
mechanics, .theory is probably the better place. If you respond and
agree, you may want to trim general from your followups.
Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> I got an offline question about TOS (which means Terms of Service) and
> where it is.
>
> http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-user.html
>
> See section 5 for the rule against offering bidders items. At least
> that's how I read:
>
> "You may not email bidders in a currently open auction being run by a
> different seller, offering similar or the same items at any price level
> (bid siphoning)"
>
> It could be argued that informing a bidder of a third party is not quite
> bid siphoning...
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
lugnet.
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Message has 3 Replies:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: McDonalds set
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| I got an offline question about TOS (which means Terms of Service) and where it is. (URL) section 5 for the rule against offering bidders items. At least that's how I read: "You may not email bidders in a currently open auction being run by a (...) (25 years ago, 9-Sep-99, to lugnet.general)
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