posted on December 18, 2000 09:16:00 AM
I pasted this from the eBay announcement board. The announcement addresses shill bidding.
"Finally, we will shortly begin randomly auditing member account activity and act on detected violations."
This sure sounds like eBay is going to start "looking" for the bad guys on their own, rather than just "following up" on reports from users. If this is true, doesn't this pretty much put the idea that eBay is "just a venue" out of it's misery? My understanding was that as long as eBay didn't actually look for violations on it's own, it could still walk the fine line of "venuability" (my own word). So, does this mean that eBay is opening itself up to be responsible for monetary damages caused by shilling that eBay fails to detect? AND since eBay is taking an active role in policing it's own site, what about all of the other areas of shady activity? Is the lid finally coming off of Pandora's "only a venue" box?
posted on December 18, 2000 09:40:24 AM
Good morning Ray!
Ebay didn't say what type of violations they would be looking for. Could be things like fee avoidance (misusing the free relist etc). Or links to webpages. Or key word spamming. Or oversized ads for things like paypal.
Hmmm.....well, I guess I just assumed that eBay was talking about looking for shillers since that was the main thrust of the announcement but I guess the actual statement I pasted here is pretty vague. I wonder what they actually ARE saying?
posted on December 18, 2000 10:19:47 AM
Here's the whole announcement.
"***Shill Bidding Prevention on eBay***
This is an update on eBay’s Shill bidding prevention efforts.
Shill bidding is the deliberate placing of bids to artificially raise the price of an item. This is a violation of the eBay User agreement, and could potentially be prosecuted as a criminal act. Shill bidding is wrong because it artificially raises the price of an item and encourages buyers to pay more than the true market price for the item.
Since shill bidding involves using a separate User ID, a false impression that another bidder is interested in the item and willing to pay more for it is created. This is unfair and could even be illegal.
We do not tolerate shill bidding and we enforce this policy stringently. In most cases, a member who is confirmed to have shill bid will be suspended for 30 days on the first offense. Subsequent violations will result in an indefinite suspension. We also cooperate fully with any law enforcement inquiry into shill bidding on eBay.
eBay developed the industry's first shill bidding detection tool in early 1999 as a way to analyze bidding patterns over multiple listings.
Since then we have also implemented other sophisticated mechanisms. These tools analyze listings and registration data for patterns indicative of shill bidding and allow our Safe Harbor group to detect and act on violations. It is also used in the investigation of reports hat are sent to the Safe Harbor by members.
We have also revised Bid History and Bidder Search to allow members to understand bidding patterns more efficiently. This was accomplished by displaying and providing the ability to sort Bidder Search by the seller ID. We believe that this will help in the detection of uestionable patterns.
Changes under consideration include enhanced member verification and limits to the number of accounts per member. These will help to reduce anonymity on the site and related concerns like shill bidding. These significant, more impactful changes are carefully being planned to ensure maximum effectiveness with minimal community disruption.
Finally, we will shortly begin randomly auditing member account activity and act on detected violations.
Although shill bidding on eBay occurs in only a small fraction of listings, it is a very important issue as it creates barriers to success for members and eBay. We will continue to invest in systems and resources to address shill bidding and other issues that undermine trust and safety.
posted on December 18, 2000 12:10:13 PM
Ray
Yeah..saw the whole announcement on the announcement board.
I think they are being very vague...notice they said they are going to do random checks of "accounts"....to me that is different than checking for shill bidding on "auctions".
I bet the random checks will be for fee avoidance. I have an idea they are losing a lot to people who misuse the "free relist" item (use an old auction that qualifies for free relist and change the auction completely)
