Buying Stuff On Ebay? Be Careful!!
I like Ebay for the great deals it offers on just about anything. But before you buy that 500 grams of say Iodine, think about this:
From the article at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32936.html
eBay to Feds: come and get what you want
By Andrew Orlowski
Posted: 19/09/2003 at 19:24 GMT
Israeli daily Haaretz has unearthed highly embarrassing, and
disturbing comments by an eBay executive. To an audience of law enforcement officials, eBay's Joseph Sullivan boasts that his company's privacy policy is meaningless.
"We don't make you show a subpoena, except in exceptional cases,"
Sullivan told a closed-door session at the CyberCrime 2003 conference last week.
"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."
Law enforcement snoopers will have plenty of material to work with:
Sullivan also boasts that eBay has logged every item of user
information since 1995. eBay helps with over 200 a month, Haaretz reports.
I highly recommend that you use an email address other than your main legit one. Pay for items with money orders, and maybe even have items shipped to address other than your home base.
I also feel that everyone who uses Ebay should contact them and tell them you disapprove of their "meaningless Privacy Policy" and that you intend to do business elsewhere or even start a class action lawsuit for abusing your privacy.
