30/7/2008 - Yeahhh Ebay is a Trafficker of Pirated Software and Cheap FAKES.
Ebays track record for flogging tons of counterfeit goods, and doing NOTHING about stopping them goes back a long wayyyyyyy....
Way way way way - back in the dark ages... I read blogs / forums detailing how Ebay was shit canning the small sellers for "worthless EBAY infringments" and yet they were doing absolutely nothing about LARGE volume sellers, who were Flogging Pirated software and FAKE goods....
The general opinion was that Ebay really didn't give a fuck about who was buying what, or who was selling what on their website, as long as the sales volume were high.....
Crooks were selling container loads of the crap, people were getting ripped off and burnt, and the people who manage Ebay were getting a cut of the action - and doing nothing to stop the sales.....
To jump forward a few years in time to 2005 - and then jump forward another 3 years.. and nothing has changed.
Ebay is STILL flogging tons of pirated software and cheap fakes - and they are still fucking around the law enforcement authorities in lots of different countries and they are still dragging their arses about pulling the auctions... and they are still raking in the cash and doing nothing except lying to YOU the consumer, that they are a trustworthy company....
Read Article A - then Article B -
Two different News papers,
Two different countries,
Several different Law Enforcement Authorites -
Several years apart.
Article A - December 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4533154.stm
Last Updated: Sunday, 18 December 2005, 17:11 GMT 
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EBay blames users for fraud
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By Matthew Chapman
BBC Radio Five Live
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The online auctioneer eBay has admitted that personal accounts are being hijacked by fraudsters, but claims it is the responsibility of eBay users themselves to prevent this.
eBay is by far the world leader in online auctions
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Criminals are obtaining the secret passwords of eBay subscribers and using their sites to conduct bogus auctions for non-existent goods.
In a growing number of cases, would-be buyers on the UK's most used website are paying thousands of pounds to apparently reputable sellers after winning auctions on the site, only to find out they had been dealing with criminals.
In an interview with Radio Five Live, eBay would not reveal exactly how many accounts had been hijacked.
"It is just not a number we give out as a business. We consider it to be business sensitive for various reasons," said Gareth Griffiths, head of trust and safety for eBay.
Sensitive issue
In one recent case up to 10 people are thought to have paid a total of £15,000 for non-existent hot tubs, while another would-be buyer thought he had purchased a £4,000 pound camper van which turned out not to exist.
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 It gets to the point where that is obstructive to our inquiry 
Ruth Taylor, North Yorkshire Trading Standards
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In both cases eBay accounts had been hijacked to sell off the non existent goods.
The hijacking of sites is a particularly sensitive issue for the auction site, which relies to a large degree on the level of trust between the buyer and seller of goods for its success.
There are more than three million items for sale on the site at any one time.
Tools provided
EBay blames account holders for not installing proper security on their home computers and for replying to so called phishing e-mails.
The auction site says its users are often to blame for security breaches
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These are fake e-mails made to look like official eBay messages and which demand the secret passwords to users' accounts.
Viruses are also said to be infecting home computers by installing themselves inside hard drives where they monitor the keystrokes of eBay users.
The viruses then make a record of secret passwords before sending them on to the fraudsters.
Describing it as an "off eBay issue", Mr Griffiths said "we have told people again and again".
"It is nothing really to do with us. We provide you with tools to help yourself."
When asked whether eBay's own computer could have been compromised, Mr Griffiths insisted that eBay's "systems are completely robust".
In both cases examined by the BBC, the eBay users who had their accounts hijacked claimed to be computer literate and vehemently denied that they had replied to phishing e-mails.
"There is no way I would have done that," said Dr Oliver Sutcliffe, a biochemist from Nottingham.
His site was hijacked over the space of one weekend to sell thousands of pounds' worth of electrical goods.
Obstructive delays
EBay is also under fire from law enforcement officials and manufacturers over levels of crime on the site and the levels of cooperation they receive.
Many big brands are far from happy with eBay's response
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Trading standards officers who regularly investigate crimes perpetrated on the site have accused eBay of being "obstructive" in the way it responds to requests for information.
North Yorkshire Trading Standards says eBay can take up to two months to provide the names and addresses of suspects it is pursuing.
"If it takes up to two months then it is eating into a lot of time that we have to make prosecutions," said Ruth Taylor who heads the authority's special investigations unit.
"It gets to the point where that is obstructive to our inquiry."
Satisfaction level
Concerns have also been raised about the large amount of counterfeit goods on sale on eBay.
Adidas told the BBC that it monitored up to 12,000 auctions involving its goods every day on the British site, yet it estimated that up to 40% of all Adidas products available were counterfeit.
EBay says it has a special relationship with brand owners who can notify the site of auctions involving counterfeit goods, which will then be taken down within hours.
(Note this bit)
*** However, the Ben Sherman clothing brand says it recently took eBay five days to take down an auction of counterfeit clothing by which time much of it had been sold.
"I think one must say that it's highly unsatisfactory," said Barry Ditchfield, Ben Sherman's brand protection manager.
"With all the amount of profits that eBay makes, then there is ample scope for additional staff.
"Frankly, it is totally unsatisfactory, not just for Ben Sherman but for all brand holders."
EBay rejected the accusations, saying that the company had a good relationship with law enforcement officials.
"The satisfaction level is generally very high," said Mr Griffiths.
"Generally speaking, we provide a good service that people are pretty happy with."
Five Live Report: Policing eBay can be heard on Radio Five Live at 1930GMT on Sunday 18 December or afterwards at the Five Live Report website.
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Article B - July 2008
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3761501/Software+Assoc+Goes+to+War+on+Piracy.htm
Software Assoc. Goes to War on Piracy
Lawsuits planned as industry association looks to sellers on sites other than eBay.
July 25, 2008
By Kenneth Corbin:  More stories by this author:
In the murky online trade of pirated software, eBay may be the biggest marketplace, but it's not the only one.
As it moves to more aggressively combat illegal sales of knockoff software, the Software Information and Industry Association (SIIA) plans to begin filing lawsuits against sellers operating on several of the smaller auction sites on the Web, according to Scott Bain, the association's litigation counsel who handles online auctions.
Bain told InternetNews.com that the SIIA expects to issue its first lawsuits against non-eBay auction sellers in the coming weeks. Many eBay competitors have software categories on their sites, such as Overstock Auctions, ePier and eBid. Bain declined to name the sites that SIIA has been talking with, but emphasized that they have generally been cooperative.
"We've had some very positive discussions and interactions with the competitors to eBay," Bain told InternetNews.com. "So far, we haven't filed any suits against those auction listings, but we're ramping up activity in that area."
The SIIA's expansion of its litigation against individual sellers comes as the association is becoming increasingly exasperated with eBay for not doing enough to keep pirated software of its own marketplace.
(I hate to interject - but Ebay doesn't do FUCK ALL)
On behalf of its members, which include large software makers such as Oracle, Adobe and Apple, SIIA has filed and won lawsuits against dozens of eBay sellers, but Bain said the group is considering legal action against eBay itself.
"We've been trying to work with eBay and offer many different suggestions," Bain said. "Very few if any of those have been adopted."
In their annual study of the economic impact, the Business Software Alliance and research firm IDC estimated that piracy cost the global software industry $48 billion in 2007.
The SIIA has asked eBay to sell it ad space on the software-listing pages where it would warn about piracy, but Bain said eBay refused. Also denied was the group's request that eBay bar the sale of software through its "Buy It Now" feature.
"The vast majority of the software sold in the Buy It Now feature is pirated," Bain said. "The ones using the Buy It Now feature are the ones trying to fence their goods as quickly as possible."
eBay, which did not respond to request for comment for this story, maintains a "fraud engine," an automated tool programmed with more than 13,000 rules to patrol the marketplace in search of fake goods.
(13,000 rules? This is like using fly wire fishing nets and finding alligators going through the holes - then toss in the amazingly interesting attitude of the management of Ebay letting the sales on, and then really really dragging their arses to pull the fake auctions off the site - well at least till after all the stuff is sold - after having been notified by the police and companies... )
eBay also gives trademark and copyright owners the chance to report fraudulent merchandise through its Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program.
Bain said that the SIIA uses that feature regularly, and that eBay is generally responsive to its takedown requests, but the merchandise is not removed immediately.
*** Bain said that a large amount of pirated software is sold in the gaps between the issuance of a takedown request and the actual removal of the listing.
(Haven't I read all this somewhere before????)
While his group's dealings with eBay have been "cordial," Bain said that "over time we've been discouraged by the inaction."
Still, the suits against sellers on eBay rivals will likely come before any litigation is brought against eBay.
"I don't mean it to sound like we're sitting here drafting a case because we're not," he explained.
The issue of eBay's responsibility for the authenticity of the goods on its marketplace recently went through a legal test, when a federal judge ruled that the online auctioneer was not required to police its site for counterfeit goods in a case brought by luxury jewelry maker Tiffany.
"The court is not unsympathetic to Tiffany and other rights owners who have invested enormous resources in developing their brands, only to see them illicitly and efficiently exploited by others on the Internet," U.S. District Court judge Richard Sullivan wrote in his opinion. "Nevertheless, the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burder to police its mark, and companies like eBay cannot be held liable for trademark infringement based solely on their generalized knowledge that trademark infringement might be occurring on their Web sites."
That verdict followed two similar cases in Europe where the courts both ruled against eBay.
Though Bain said that the Tiffany outcome was not a "positive result," it doesn't necessarily short-circuit any litigation the SIIA might pursue.
For starters, he pointed out it was only one judge's opinion in a bench trial, and that it would likely be appealed to Circuit Court.
Second, Tiffany was going after eBay on trademark infringement, whereas any case that the SIIA might file would be based on copyright law, with the relevant statues found in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Should the SIIA move ahead with litigation against eBay but fail to convince a judge that it violated the DMCA, Bain said his group's next step would be to appeal to Congress to update the 10-year-old copyright law's Safe Harbor provision to address the role of auction sites in the pirated-software trade.
The Management of Ebay
Scumbags Everybody
I always find it interesting when a HUGE company, stands over small sellers and closes their auctions immediately, for saying, "Despite what Ebay says, I don't take payment by Paypal, because I don't have a Paypal account..." or they stand over small people in their small disputes.... and suspend their accounts just like that....
And yet, when trademark owners and the Cops say to Ebay, "These folks are selling millions and millions of dollars worth of fake goods and pirated software - shut them down"....
The management of Ebay, may get around it eventually - but only after all the stuff is sold - onto unsuspecting consumers.
And the management of Ebay - have been doing this for as long as I can remember....
And despite all of Ebays magnificent "scanning technology", and despite the complaints and despite the courts and despite the police etc..
Somehow, the people who manage Ebay are not managing to even try and get on top of it....
Funny about that - isn't it.
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