posted on September 17, 2000 09:58:04 AM new
Wouldn't ya just LUV ta know WHO gave eBay the idea of giving out our RL addies and telephone numbers???
I would!
I'd LUV ta know who wants alla the potential customers that eBay plans to advertise to, to stay clear of eBay because of SAFETY concerns about their online privacy.
I'd LUV to know who wants alla the liddle widdle sellers to LEAVE eBay -- alla the people with NON-RL-brick & mortar addies, but work outta their homes.
I mean this is even stooooooopider than most of the ideas they come up with.
I hope they continue to ask for the ENTIRE eBay Community FEEDBACK and discussion BEFORE acting on these ideas -- this one would have been very expensive for eBay!
However, perhaps, it is better for eBay to simply concentrate SOLELY on alla those sellers who submit 70,000 auctions a day, and to concentrate SOLELY on advertising revenues.
THAT is where alla the money is, and THIS idea -- to remove anonymity from eBay, when infact, MORE, is needed, for online safety --- this could be to encourage us to close uP cybershoppe.
posted on September 17, 2000 10:19:19 AM new
im nearly into my 8th year on the internet and web and I have never used Anonymity.
I do have a nick name but in all my websites my about me pages my email name even On IRC I have always used my real name and address on ebay there never was no Anonymity anyone registered could get my name adress and phone number by looking at my about me pages websites or requesting it from ebay.
do I beleve buyer should call before buying or bidding my sales no.buyers and sellers both are dealing in trust of each other.
with out trust online auction cant exist. if I fail to contact some one or answer email or shipping is takeing long then they think then they should contact me about the hold up.
I do how ever invite all who want to bid to contact me by snail mail or email with any questions. but not call only within reason these calls will cost them money and I am not home 24/7 to anwer the phone I work outside the house too.
WWW.dman-n-company.com
posted on September 17, 2000 10:20:33 AM new
It hasn't been easy to get an email address via browsing for quite some time. Early versions of Netscape sent a header with your address, but they wized up in a hurry. Other tricks like using a hidden mailto don't work with IE (they kick up a mailer window), and anything else would probably have to depend on third party cookies, which are -- whether they realize it or not -- in their death throes.
As to being harvested here, nope. Different address, and I don't even think I have it exposed.
I *do* take a no-holds-barred position on spam, BTW. See those people?
posted on September 17, 2000 10:28:45 AM new
There's "trust", and there's "accountability".
I would have no problem trusting eBay to forward a stranger's email to me (and vice-versa), so that I could answer his questions.
I *do* have a problem with them laying my private information out for all the world, just in case someone feels like accessing it.
I laid out a perfectly workable solution to them -- one that would preserve *both* privacy *and* accountability, and they did not so much as grace me with a boilerplate reply.
That tells me that the mail is read by humans, and I gave them something that they have no "relevant" boilerplate throw back.
I cannot comprehend why they will not do it. The potential for something off-the-charts-ugly is *so* great that IMO it's just a question of time before something in RL happens to some poor seller.
What will the response be *then*? Maybe they'll bite the bullet and put some more "strongly worded" warnings against misuse of personal information.
sourpuss: i thought that all sortsa websites that i surf through can go into other websites and retrieve my RL info and email addie. i read that advertisers do this alla the time - say, you've registered with the NY Times, that they can spider in there and retrieve the info you did NOT give them, but left with the NY Times.
posted on September 17, 2000 11:23:02 AM new
say, sourpuss: as an authority on SPAM, i am curious about sumthin'.
playpal has always accepted money from bidders, EVEN THOUGH THE SELLER HAS NO ACCOUNT with playpal, and then notifies the seller to come & register at playpal to retrieve their payment.
I wanna know if there's any addie we can forward these stinking emails to, emails which require that sellers potentially offend their bidders by telling them to go cancel their playpal payment and send pymt according to TOS.
I find playpal to be one of the most disgusting creations from the Net to date.
posted on September 17, 2000 05:53:36 PM new
"We are working on changes that will allow us to remove anonymity on eBay and other changes that will
allow us to keep unsavory members off of eBay once they are suspended. We will continue to work on
additional safeguards with an emphasis on prevention"
Perhaps this is in part due to whats his name the wacko who went through 40 odd i.d.'s not so long ago, and it ended up in court. Perhaps Ebay found dealing with that person rather tedious, and quite a waste of time?
posted on September 17, 2000 05:57:38 PM new
we have bidders calling our residence when they can not get thru to our buisness, i think we are pretty much not annonamous.......
every 20 seconds in america a woman is giving birth:SHE MUST BE FOUND AND STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.................................................................
posted on September 18, 2000 02:00:54 PM new"We are working on changes that will allow us to remove anonymity on eBay..."
I've already briefly pointed out my concern about this bit in the "phone number" thread, but my opinions break down into two related parts:
1) The above statement is hopelessly vague, and could mean anything. It could range from one thing being changed (e.g. releasing phone numbers) to an extreme such as listing bidder and seller phone numbers and street addresses right on individual auction pages. That's how vague I find their claims.
Verification asks for a planeload of info, from what it sounds like -- and through a credit bureau regarded as one that's rather free-handed with information on credit-holders. I lost trust with the credit bureaus when I heard one of them was ruled against in regard to their selling information to direct marketers, when I realized they were the main source of information that some direct marketers use to send those "sign up for our card" junk mail (which is one type of junk mail that you should actually shred, by the way).
I don't know what eBay means by the above quote, and that alone bothers me.
2) eBay should not be giving out any personal information unless a very specific complaint is made, and even then, caution should rule. Emails should be behind a double blind, that if a buyer wants to ask the seller a question, the buyer fills in a form page that eBay forwards. Or give the seller a choice whether to go non-blind, single blind, or double blind (the first already exists when users make their user ID be their email address; the second is how things currently act when a non-email ID is selected; and the third does not exist).
Only high bidder and the seller should be informed of each others' email addresses, through the EOA -- though eBay would first have to fix the current "delayed EOA" problem, of course).
The seller and the bidder can then exchange email to give the mailing addresses they wish to use for mailing the payment and item to. Sellers would, of course, be free to list their address on their auction or "me" page if they so desired. Buyers could too, I suppose, though I don't see why any would.
Phone numbers should never be given out, unless one or both parties is/are willing. Some numbers are not generally listed, and even the listed number holders wouldn't care for the potential increase in telemarketing.
Only if there is a problem should eBay be giving out information, and even then, I'm not sure how much.
Verification should be done through an agency that will verify but otherwise keep information confidential, and that will not demand SSN.
Non-verified users should not be branded with a bold "unverified" tag (I know it's PP that's doing this, but eBay could end up doing this too).
No individual user information should ever be sold to a direct marketer or other company.
"Web bugs" should be banished (either that or include an "about web bugs" link on every page that would lead to instructions on how to block them -- yeah, I know I'm dreaming! ).
DoubleClick ads, which I still believe are completely wrong for eBay users, should be banished, or, if not eliminated, at least have a link immediately below them to some sort of profiling opt-out (but I still say they shouldn't be there, especially given how shaky, at best, opt-outing out generally is).
Stalking, though rare, does happen. Phone calls in the middle of sleep might not become common, but common enough to annoy. Spam is already a plague. Companies selling out their customers to direct marketers is an epidemic as far as I'm concerned (and direct marketing, as currently dished out, especially in telemarketing, is tatamount to harrassment, IMO).
Though the Internet is not very "private," there is a difference between:
1) someone having to be determined or odd enough to hunt out someone's information; and
2) most of the companies willingly plastering your information for all to see or buy ("giving" people ideas on contacting you).
There is a difference between:
1) Criminals getting away with anything because of total anonymity (which doesn't really exist);
2) Criminals' information being found through investigation of actual fraud; and
3) Innocent people's information being sold and/or displayed at whim.
There is a difference between:
1) eBay instituting some modest and very confidential verification procedures; and
2) eBay (or PayPal) doing verification through a gigantic credit bureau thought to be rather loose with credit-holders' information.
There is a difference between:
1) Investigating the ID/email/snail/phone trail of a user discovered committing fraud; and
2) Opening the ID/email/snail/phone trail of the 99% (?) of users who haven't commited fraud.
A little story for those who say things like "the junk comes anyway, no matter what you do" ....: My original email got spammed, so I figured out what the main culprits were, then implemented steps to avoid these problems when I got a new address. Result? Despite the new address being used for eBay, AW, Usenet, a mailing list, and two other sites, and on two of my own websites, that address wasn't spammed for six months, received only six spams for a whole 19 months, and only recently started getting a high rate of spam (I suspect through eBay, more than the others) -- and this address does not even have any spam filtering software attached to it!
If you are moderately cautious with your email address, you can avoid most spam, just as avoiding certain unnecessary things in offline purchases, you can drop below the radar of most offline direct marketers.
Nontheless, it shouldn't be even this much bother to eliminate this "kipple" * (junk) from one's life -- or more to the point, it shouldn't be this easy for direct marketers to run things.
I have to agree with whoever ( radh? ) who said or implied that marketers seem to be running so many things, though there are lines of meaning in this too. Some degree of advertising helps products, after all. Non-direct marketing (e.g. TV ads, billboards, magazine or newspaper ads) can range from mildly annoying (more annoying in quantity) to occasionally amusing; but direct marketing is intrusive, often unwelcome, persistent, and rarely amusing. Still, if you lump all ads together, it is also true that there are just too many.
We don't need eBay doing things that will bury us under more junk advertising. We can come to eBay for all the "junque" we want, but eBay doesn't seem to like that any more.
I hope eBay doesn't try fixing rudder problems with nuclear bombs -- where the screwdrivers and wrenches already laying about, mostly unused, would fix 99% of the 1% that are problems. Or am I being naive?
Sorry for the length of this note, but if anyone made it here, I hope it was an interesting flight.
-a plane speaker
* P.S. Anyone get the "kipple" reference? How applicable do you think it is to the various forms of junk (direct marketing)? Sometimes, I really start to think that this junk is getting voluminous beyond being just "junk" -- to being "kipple" instead.
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
[ Edited to clarify the paragraph that now begins with "Nontheless" ]
[ edited by dc9a320 on Sep 18, 2000 02:04 PM ]
posted on September 18, 2000 02:14:53 PM new
I want totas up-front sellers, and that's why I use my name here.
I am hoping the the Federal Govt will soon impose the same rules as other auctioneers, including fingerprints, background checks and credit checks. That will get rid of the criminal element.
posted on September 18, 2000 03:05:18 PM new
So if I decided to sell off a series of 80 books I might no longer want, or an old water-filter vacuum cleaner, and a few other random items now and then, I'd have to submit to all this?
Even I wouldn't object to a modest credit check, IF consistently applied and done confidentially (meaning with a company that won't sell out the fact that so-and-so just verified with eBay to direct marketers, for example), but fingerprint checks?
eBay grabbed me because of all the small-time neat stuff sold by mostly small-time sellers, and with my carefully checking feedback (not just the number, but a decent sample of the actual comments), and several dozen purchases, I don't have a single complaint.
I think fingerprint checks would scare most people away, either for one reason or simply because of the bother.
By "auctioneer," do you mean seller, or the announcer? On eBay, the latter would be eBay. If seller, are you implying every offline seller has to be so rigorously verified for every type of auction? Charity auction? Small change auctions? Or just the major items?
Isn't "escrow" supposed to be one way to cut down on fraud, including where verification or full identification is unwelcome?
-planely puzzled
Edited to add... not that I disagree there are too many bad sellers -- I just don't want the cure to be worse than the disease.
[ edited by dc9a320 on Sep 18, 2000 03:06 PM ]
posted on September 18, 2000 03:18:53 PM new
I assure you that "the federal government" has no intentions of requiring a credit check nor fingerprints for online sellers.
The Library of Congress provides a database of all bills that are being considered by Congress. Here's a link:
It should also be noted that the vast majority of bills submitted are never even brought before a committee, and, in fact they are submitted for political, rather than practical reasons.
Now, it's quite possible that eBay could require a credit check. But there's no way they will ever require fingerprints. It would be prohibitively expensive, and really wouldn't accomplish anything.
But none of this will be required by the federal government, and state and local governments do not have the power to regulate interstate commerce.
posted on September 18, 2000 08:15:08 PM new
I think I'll remain anonymous just in case Radh finally goes postal. In that event would you want her to know where to find you????
