eBay, ever anxious to up profits, bends over backward to provide data to law enforcement officials
"I don't know another Web site that has a privacy policy as flexible as eBay's," says Joseph Sullivan. A little bit later, Sullivan explains what he means by the term "flexible." Sullivan is director of the "law enforcement and compliance" department at eBay.com, the largest retailer in the world.
Sullivan was speaking to senior representatives of numerous law-enforcement agencies in the United States on the occasion of "Cyber Crime 2003," a conference that was held last week in Connecticut. His lecture was closed to reporters, and for good reason. Haaretz has obtained a recording of the lecture, in which Sullivan tells the audience that eBay is willing to hand over everything it knows about visitors to its Web site that might be of interest to an investigator. All they have to do is ask. "There's no need for a court order," Sullivan said, and related how the company has half a dozen investigators under contract, who scrutinize "suspicious users" and "suspicious behavior." The spirit of cooperation is a function of the patriotism that has surged in the wake of September 11.
eBay is the world's largest auction site. Some 62 million registered users buy and sell a variety of merchandise through the site, which charges commissions for every item sold. Sullivan claims that 150,000 Internet users earn their livelihood from the site, some having left their old jobs to become buyers or sellers on eBay.
The sales method on the site is simple: An individual registers as a user, types in his particulars, and affirms that he accepts the user conditions and the site's privacy policy. Whenever an item is sold, the buyer fills out an evaluation form, telling other users about the treatment he received, whether the merchandise was sent on time, etc. Other eBay users can then avoid buying from sellers who have received poor grades.
Sullivan says eBay has recorded and documented every iota of data that has come through the Web site since it first went online in 1995. Every time someone makes a bid, sells an item, writes about someone else, even when the company cancels a sale for whatever reason - it documents all of the pertinent information.
One would think that preserving privacy of the users, whose moves are so meticulously recorded, would be keenly observed at eBay, whose good name in the Internet community is one of its prime assets. But in the U.S. of the post 9/11 and pre-Gulf War II era, helping the "security forces" is considered a supreme act of patriotism.
Who needs a subpoena?
"We don't make you show a subpoena, except in exceptional cases," Sullivan told his listeners. "When someone uses our site and clicks on the `I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Which means that 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. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site," he adds. He says he receives about 200 such requests a month, most of them unofficial requests in the form of an email or fax.
The meaning is clear. One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user's full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed, feedbacks received, bids he has made, prices he has paid, and even messages sent in the site's various discussion groups.
Attorney Nimrod Kozlovski, author of "The Computer and the Legal Process" (in Hebrew), heard the lecture, and could not believe his ears. "The consent given in the user contract should be seen as `coerced consent,' in the absence of any opportunity to exercise free choice, with no real alternative but to agree. This is most certainly not conscious consent."
Kozlovski is part of the Information Society Project group at Yale Law School, in which he and his colleagues consider the effects of the new media on the structure of society. American law does not authorize searches of a person's home or body, he says, except in exceptional cases such as when the court authorizes a search, or when the individual gives his consent to a search.
"In the case before us, the Web site signs the user to a document that says it can do whatever it wants with his information. The eBay contract signed by the user concedes his or her rights to protection from the government; in essence, as soon as the contract is signed, eBay can invite the government to do whatever it wants with the information, he says.
A brief visit to the company's Web site reveals that the "user contract" that visitors are supposed to read before agreeing to the conditions is 4,023 words long. One paragraph makes reference to the site's "privacy policy." The user has to click on a link and is diverted to another document that is some 3,750 words long. It then takes another 2,390 words to reach the section about which Sullivan told the legal authorities: The user's privacy is solely up to eBay.
"The users are asked to read and agree to the site policy before they can make use of it," eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove told Haaretz. "We provide a link to our privacy policy on every single page of our site, and provide summaries of this policy, all so that users will be familiar with our policy."
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"I don't know another Web site that has a privacy policy as flexible as eBay's," says Joseph Sullivan. A little bit later, Sullivan explains what he means by the term "flexible." Sullivan is director of the "law enforcement and compliance" department at eBay.com, the largest retailer in the world.
Sullivan was speaking to senior representatives of numerous law-enforcement agencies in the United States on the occasion of "Cyber Crime 2003," a conference that was held last week in Connecticut. His lecture was closed to reporters, and for good reason. Haaretz has obtained a recording of the lecture, in which Sullivan tells the audience that eBay is willing to hand over everything it knows about visitors to its Web site that might be of interest to an investigator. All they have to do is ask. "There's no need for a court order," Sullivan said, and related how the company has half a dozen investigators under contract, who scrutinize "suspicious users" and "suspicious behavior." The spirit of cooperation is a function of the patriotism that has surged in the wake of September 11.
eBay is the world's largest auction site. Some 62 million registered users buy and sell a variety of merchandise through the site, which charges commissions for every item sold. Sullivan claims that 150,000 Internet users earn their livelihood from the site, some having left their old jobs to become buyers or sellers on eBay.
The sales method on the site is simple: An individual registers as a user, types in his particulars, and affirms that he accepts the user conditions and the site's privacy policy. Whenever an item is sold, the buyer fills out an evaluation form, telling other users about the treatment he received, whether the merchandise was sent on time, etc. Other eBay users can then avoid buying from sellers who have received poor grades.
Sullivan says eBay has recorded and documented every iota of data that has come through the Web site since it first went online in 1995. Every time someone makes a bid, sells an item, writes about someone else, even when the company cancels a sale for whatever reason - it documents all of the pertinent information.
One would think that preserving privacy of the users, whose moves are so meticulously recorded, would be keenly observed at eBay, whose good name in the Internet community is one of its prime assets. But in the U.S. of the post 9/11 and pre-Gulf War II era, helping the "security forces" is considered a supreme act of patriotism.
Who needs a subpoena?
"We don't make you show a subpoena, except in exceptional cases," Sullivan told his listeners. "When someone uses our site and clicks on the `I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Which means that 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. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site," he adds. He says he receives about 200 such requests a month, most of them unofficial requests in the form of an email or fax.
The meaning is clear. One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user's full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed, feedbacks received, bids he has made, prices he has paid, and even messages sent in the site's various discussion groups.
Attorney Nimrod Kozlovski, author of "The Computer and the Legal Process" (in Hebrew), heard the lecture, and could not believe his ears. "The consent given in the user contract should be seen as `coerced consent,' in the absence of any opportunity to exercise free choice, with no real alternative but to agree. This is most certainly not conscious consent."
Kozlovski is part of the Information Society Project group at Yale Law School, in which he and his colleagues consider the effects of the new media on the structure of society. American law does not authorize searches of a person's home or body, he says, except in exceptional cases such as when the court authorizes a search, or when the individual gives his consent to a search.
"In the case before us, the Web site signs the user to a document that says it can do whatever it wants with his information. The eBay contract signed by the user concedes his or her rights to protection from the government; in essence, as soon as the contract is signed, eBay can invite the government to do whatever it wants with the information, he says.
A brief visit to the company's Web site reveals that the "user contract" that visitors are supposed to read before agreeing to the conditions is 4,023 words long. One paragraph makes reference to the site's "privacy policy." The user has to click on a link and is diverted to another document that is some 3,750 words long. It then takes another 2,390 words to reach the section about which Sullivan told the legal authorities: The user's privacy is solely up to eBay.
"The users are asked to read and agree to the site policy before they can make use of it," eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove told Haaretz. "We provide a link to our privacy policy on every single page of our site, and provide summaries of this policy, all so that users will be familiar with our policy."
Want to learn even more?
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/p...bContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y8/03