eBay volunteers customer records to police
Lawmeme has the scoop on eBay's willingness to hand over customer records to law enforcement personnel, without requiring warrants or subpoenas. There are any number of problems with this: forged requests from people claiming to be police, requests made by real police for personal reasons, genuine requests that would otherwise be illegal or invalid. What's puzzling is eBay's motive for being so cooperative. Complying with a law enforcement demand for information is costly, particularly for a low-margin online operation. Voluntarily acting as a clearing house for investigators is clearly a losing proposition, unless they are getting something in return. Guessing eBay's reward for cooperation is left as an exercise for the reader.
Without a subpoena, eBay will provide the following information regarding an eBay user to law enforcement: Full Name, User ID, Email Address, Street Address, State, City, Zip Code, Phone Number, Country, Company, Password, Secondary Phone, Gender, Personal or Business, Shipping information (Name, Street Address, City, State, Zip) In addition eBay will provide the following transaction information: Bidding History on an Item, Other Items for Sale, Feedback about a user, Bidding history of a user, Prices paid for items, Feedback rating, and Chat Room/Bulletin Board (!). [...] [Joseph E. Sullivan, Director of Compliance and Law Enforcement Relations for eBay] continues,update: Gideon's Promise suggests eBay's attitude is due largely to a number of ex-government employees on its payroll.So, that really opens the door for us. That means that what our policy is that if you are law enforcement agency you can fax us on your letterhead to request information: who is that beyond the seller ID, who is beyond this user ID. We give you their name, their address, their e-mail address and we can give you their sales history without a subpoena.That's all you need, a fax on law enforcement letterhead. No reason, no justification, and eBay starts feeding information to law enforcement. Remember when everyone got excited about the bookstore that was subpoened by Ken Starr in order to determine what books Monica Lewinski purchased? Remember how the bookstore fought the subpoena? eBay doesn't even require a subpoena. eBay would have turned over the info with a mere request. - Lawmeme, eBay to Law Enforcement - We're Here to Help.