Selling and Selling Out
eBay's "director of law enforcement and compliance," Joseph Sullivan, is
quoted in a lecture closed to reporters at Cyber Crime 2003:
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.'
...
"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.
* Ray, 9/17/2003 11:44:53 AM
