eBay opposes bills in Congress designed to fight online sales of stolen goods

Although it’s pledging to cooperate fully with law enforcement, eBay is steadfastly opposing three pending pieces of legislation in Congress designed to help fight the growing trend of e-fencing. E-fencing is the practice of selling stolen goods online and the popular auction site is often a hotspot of such activity.

The bills would require “online marketplaces” like eBay to give up private user information about sellers to retailers who make complaints of stolen good sales, and allow them to sue sites that refuse to adequately investigate such complaints.

“The bills try to address retail theft by trying to impose additional obligations, additional liabilities on the marketplace,” Edward Torpoco, senior litigation and regulatory counsel at eBay, said during a briefing with reporters. “We feel very strongly that any common-sense approach to combat retail theft needs to recognize first and foremost that the primary responsibility for preventing theft actually resides with the retailers, given that employee theft is the single leading cause of theft.”

eBay says that while it has no problem giving such information to law enforcement agencies investigating theft, it feels that having to also release it to retailers is unfair and encourage retailers who want the legislation to focus more on the point of theft rather than on where those goods ultimately end up. eBay’s view is that stopping theft where it happens is the real key to any successful crackdown and points out that most retail theft is perpetrated by employees.

How do you feel about these bills? Should eBay have to give up seller info to retailers claiming theft? Is it a violation of privacy? An unfair burden on online marketplaces? Let us know your thoughts!

Read [PCWorld]