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In lugnet.market.theory, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> Susan, I don't want to start a brawl with you but I disagree with
> several of the points you're making. You're new here, so you may not
> know me and my stances, which I do not hesitate to articulate, and which
> I do so quite vigorously.
>
> Don't take this personally, it's just me, being a (dogmatic???)
> libertarian. I cannot let your statements go unchallenged, although I
> have no issue whatever with you as a person.
> [rest of stuff deleted]
I have no issues with you personally either Larry and this is a civilized
discussion not a "brawl" or a flame war - I am somewhat toward the libertarian
view myself (I'm not dogmatic about anything except how cool the Internet and
Legos are :), but this is one instance where I don't see what harm an
investigation can do - I believe that the society of the future and the
expantion of the frontier of the worldwide economy depends to a large extent on
the relatively free flow of non-proprietary information (it's not to ebaY's
advantage or to a seller's or bidder's advantage to hide that which it otherwise
clearly wants to shamelessly promote and is in it's best interest to freely
exchange - suing AW and Bidder's Edge is a panicky method by which ebaY is using
the government to create a monopoly that hurts all of us (while monopoly by
itself is a fine idea, when done so at the expense of a service for which there
is no currently viable alternative and the market doesn't straighten it out by
itself, well that's where antitrust comes in) so I'm afraid the government is
already involved - had ebaY been truly business savvy they would have gone ahead
and bought out or licensed the Bidders Edge's technology and maybe even
Universal Search - ebaY certainly can afford it and IMHO it would have made for
a far better ebaY search for everyone. I believe that companies that are
successful long term look to practice cooperativity and don't get lawyers
involved except when absolutely necessary. ebaY opened up this possibility when
it started the search engine litigation, much of this strikes me as sour grapes
on their part over a bit of clever outlawyering by AW & Bidder's Edge - it is
unfortunate that two branches of government will have to consider this rather
than all parties doing some soul searching and hammering it out for themselves.
BTW I am an intellectual property lawyer (I'm not actively representing clients
as I can make a better living and have a better quality of life engaging in
ecommerce!) I'm not wild about the DOJ, it is an extremely political animal (I
did take some unfair business practices courses in law school) and antitrust law
is as clear as mud. FWIW ebaY probably owns only the format in which listings
are displayed and the technology that makes the listings possible, NOT the
listing information itself which is clearly the intellectual property of the
seller and any third party services like counters it chooses to use.
We agree to disagree on this one to some extent - somedays I wonder what would
happen if the NSF (a government agency) hadn't decided to allow ecommerce to be
born by just keeping the 'net as a big government research project into new
means of communication. If you want to take it off topic ok by me, but I've said
my peace.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: "Justice Probes eBay for Antitrust"
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| "Susan Olson" <so0s@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:FpHB1t.BJ9@lugnet.com... [snip] (...) would (...) to be (...) new (...) I've said (...) Far be it from me to get in the middle of this one, law was about as far from my college major as you (...) (25 years ago, 6-Feb-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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