I invited eBay to respond to a Feb 2003 report that raised the same concerns: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04485.html To the best of my knowledge, eBay never responded to my invitation. Since then, I've spoken with people who have attended meetings where eBay representatives have met with law enforcement to discuss this kind of information sharing. These people confirmed the Feb 2003 report that appeared in Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper. -Declan --- http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=engle June 20, 2003 Buyer Bewaree Bay Security Chief Turns Website Into Arm of the Lawby Jonah Engle Speaking at a conference this winter on Internet crime, eBay.com's director of law enforcement and compliance, Joseph Sullivan, offered law-enforcement officials extensive access to personal customer information. Founded in 1995 as a niche site for collectibles, eBay quickly grew into one of the Internet's largest websites, currently boasting 69 million daily visitors, who place an average of 7.7 million bids each day. The company, now valued at $29.6 billion, has become synonymous with online shopping, and is rapidly expanding overseas. The talk, "Working with Law Enforcement," was delivered at the CyberCrime 2003 conference in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Sullivan, who left the Justice Department to become senior counsel for rules, trust and safety at eBay last year, told the audience of law-enforcement officials and industry executives that he didn't "know another website that has a privacy policy as flexible as eBay's," seemingly meaning that eBay acts particularly quickly to grant law enforcement extensive access to user information without regard to established legal procedures that protect individuals from civil rights abuses by the state. Brags Sullivan, "If you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details--all without having to produce a court order." (eBay itself goes further than this, employing six investigators who are charged with tracking down "suspicious people" and "suspicious behavior.") Seventy percent of eBay customers, as well as a significant portion of the rest of the online commercial world, make their purchases using (eBay-owned) Paypal, which provides clearing services for online financial transactions. Through Paypal, eBay has access to the financial records of tens of millions of customers. "If you contact me," said Sullivan to assembled law-enforcement authorities, "I will hook you up with the Paypal people. They will help you get the information you're looking for.... In order to give you details about credit-card transactions, I have to see a court order. I suggest that you get one, if that's what you're looking for." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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