Scientology Given Direct Access To eBay Database

An anonymous reader writes "The Church of Scientology can delete auctions from eBay with no supervision under the VeRO program, and has used this to delete all resale of the e-meters Scientologists use. This is to stop members from buying used units from ex-members instead of buying from the official (and very expensive) source. Given Scientology's record of fraud and abuse, should eBay give them this level of trust? Will this set a precedent for other companies that want to stop the aftermarket resale of their products?"

Don't tell Chef but

[qw(name) (718245)]

Just go to Radio Shack and buy an ohmmeter. They're a lot cheaper.

Re:Don't tell Chef but

[rishistar (662278)]

But I'm Hindu you insensitive clod! I have to use an Aum [wikipedia.org]-meter for my religious measurements!

Re:Don't tell Chef but

[thanksforthecrabs (1037698)]

Does this mean my "What Would Xenu Do?" t-shirt isn't legal?

Re:Don't tell Chef but

[Bobb Sledd (307434)]

No, it's OK. "Xenu do" was already a movie from the 80's starring Olivia Newton-John.

Re:Head Shops & E-Meters

[rootofevil (188401)]

since April 1, 1976 [wikipedia.org]

alternatively, October 2, 1925 [wikipedia.org]

Re:Head Shops & E-Meters

[Hillgiant (916436)]

Erm, excuse me. What does God need with a starship?

Re:Head Shops & E-Meters

[notnAP (846325)]

And you must not be very familiar with the space opera that is Star Trek, from which the GP was quoting quite humorously.

Re:Head Shops & E-Meters

[ethanms (319039)]

It's sad, but I can't stop myself from replying to this obvious nerd bait...... the quote is from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, not "The Undiscovered Country"

Re:Head Shops & E-Meters

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

Jesus Liked Little Boys? [xs4all.nl]

Re:Don't tell Chef but

[elrous0 (869638)]

The Church of Scientology has ruined lives [wikipedia.org], had people imprisoned on false charges [wikipedia.org], sued innocent people into bankruptcy, committed espionage [wikipedia.org], harassed critics at their jobs, silence free speech, etc.

There is nothing funny about them.

short answer

[Romancer (19668)]

Short answer, no.

This is favoritism. Microsoft doesn't even have this ability to stop the resale of their software.

Re:short answer

[AoT (107216)]

It isn't even favoritism, it's outright stupid given CoS' past abuses.

Re:short answer

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

It's outright stupid, period. Why does ebay give this power to anyone? What do they possibly stand to gain from it? And how on earth does the CoS, or anyone, restrict after-market resale of their products? It's called the free market and it's America. Licensing software is one thing, but a physical object? What ?

Re:short answer

[AoT (107216)]

eBay explains here [ebay.com] why they do it. I would guess that it's easier for them(read: costs less money) to simply let the companies do the work of deleting auctions, rather than have the company call or email eBay every time they want something taken down.

I especially love their section on how things won't be mistakenly removed:

How eBay helps to ensure that listings aren't mistakenly removed. A rights owner reporting through VeRO must be registered through VeRO before reporting items to us. Rights owners sign legally binding documents when reporting items to eBay.

Ooooh! Legal binding documents, I feel so safe.

My guess is...

[an.echte.trilingue (1063180)]

It's probably cheaper for Ebay to simply acquiesce to the CoS demands than to meet them in court. Even if they win, they may never see their legal fees recovered. There is less risk involved in giving in, too: they loose almost nothing if they yank the items, but could potentially lose a fortune if they don't.

The Scientologists are just that scary.

Re:My guess is...

[erroneus (253617)]

Scientology must die. It was already a sign that they are beyond control when they can intimidate the IRS let alone eBay. I find it amazing that they've been able to do what they've done to this point. They are indeed frightening and that is reason enough to want the whole operation disbanded. I wonder how the EU is doing with the CoS? Last I heard some member nations were refusing to recognize them as a religion.

It's a given that CoS will abuse eBay's information. I guess it's already too late to purge my account.

Re:My guess is...

[KublaiKhan (522918)]

Germany, especially, which is launching an investigation into their practices.

You may be interested in the phenomenon of Anonymous--a sort of movement that has coalesced to fight against the abuses of the Church of Scientology.

Interestingly, the 'official' position (if so nebulous a thing can have anything 'official') is not that the -religion- of scientology is wrong and evil, but that the -organization- that calls itself the 'Church of Scientology' does not deserve tax exemption, recognition as a church, etc.

I've been keeping track of Anonymous for some time--they seem to be the origin of many of the various memes that end up getting popular, so they seem to work well as a sort of miner's canary when discerning the opinion of the internet in general. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that this particular phenomenon has occurred--an internet movement that has had significant international effect in the real world. What makes it even more interesting is that it -has no leaders-. Somehow, out of total anarchy, it's managed to coalesce a sort of identity to itself, and has directed attention towards a single goal.

At any rate, it appears that as a followup to the February 10th protests (which were remarkable in themselves in that they were entirely without violence and none of the protesters in any of the countries were arrested--that has to be a first, in a protest of that scope) there are another series of protests being planned for March 15th--sort of a "Happy Birthday" to Hubbard, whose birthday was apparently March 13th and not conveniently on a Saturday this year. I've also heard some mention of plans for April, but not being an Anon, I don't know the details.

IIRC, one of the Anonymous-sponsored websites is youfoundthecard.com; it's worth looking into.

Re:My guess is...

[an.echte.trilingue (1063180)]

Where I live, Belgium, they are not considered a religion. Neither are they in Germany [germany.info]:

On November 11, 2004 the Administrative Court in Cologne ruled that the monitoring of SO Germany by the Office for the Protection of the Consitution is lawful. The Court underlined that there are clear indications that the SO pursues anticonstitutional activities directed at abolishing the human rights guaranteed in the Basic Constitutional Law (Grundgesetz). An appeal at the Higher Administrative Court in Münster is pending.

This is, interestingly, also the only group that does not benefit from some of the basic advances of the European integration. For example, Scientologists have been excluded from the free circulation of workers since Van Duyn v Home Office in 1974 [peterjepson.com].

Re:short answer

[jandrese (485)]

Filing a Copyright Counter Notice. For listings that have been removed at the request of the rights owner for copyright infringement, you may have the option of filing a Counter Notice with eBay if you feel that your listings were removed in error and you have not been able to come to an agreement with the rights owner.

A Counter Notice is a form provided by eBay in compliance with the requirements of the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The form is a legal document that requires you to, among other things, certify under sworn penalty of perjury that your listings were not infringing and were removed by mistake or misidentification. When you sign a Counter Notice, you will also have to consent to federal jurisdiction and service of process. Please read this form carefully, so you fully understand what you agree to if you choose to submit it to eBay.

Once a valid Counter Notice is submitted, eBay will provide a copy of the notice to the reporting party and will advise them that the listings will be reinstated after 10 business days if we do not hear from the reporting party that they have filed an action seeking a court order to restrain you from re-listing the items.

This part is interesting. Assuming eBay doesn't just file 13 these counterclaim notices, I wonder which way a Federal court would rule on it? I don't see where they have legal grounds for a copyright case on a hardware device that you're just reselling. I'm not sure many people want to deal with the CoS lawyers long enough to find out though.

Re:short answer

[Teun (17872)]

It's outright stupid, period. Why does ebay give this power to anyone?

Because CO$ has a lot of nasty lawyers.
They run a despicable business that can only survive thanks to litigation.

This story of E-bay associating with CO$ cannot possibly be good for E-bay's reputation.

Re:short answer

[MightyMartian (840721)]

You know, I simply don't understand why the government lets $cientology have its cake and eat it too. If they're a religion, then they shouldn't be afforded all these civil protections. I'm not going to get sued by my local Catholic Diocese if I print nasty bits from the Bible or some part of the latest Papal encyclical.

I think the government should give $cientology a choice; either be a religion, in which case you can't sue, you can't seek special favors from companies over the resale of your products, and so forth, or you're not a religion, and you're a business, in which case you've got to pay taxes on moneys or products changing hands.

And in either case, their lawyers should be disbarred for multiple cases of malicious prosecution.

Or, in short form, FUCK $CIENTOLOGY.

Who cares?

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

If someone is drinking the Scientology Kool Aid, then does it really matter whether or not they get discounted second hand equipment? If Scientology has their hooks into you they will get your money one way or another.

What they're really trying to control is the purchase of scientology collectables by non-scientologists.

Is this legal?

[obstalesgone (1231810)]

Is it, in general, legal to allow a vendor to prevent the resale of their product? I don't understand why this would be considered beneficial to society or why it wouldn't be considered monopolistic.

Of course, I'm no lawyer, but I've heard that everyone on Slashdot is.

this = Scientology

[eleuthero (812560)]

Though the fraud claim will probably lead to slashdot getting sued, Germany http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/08/scientology_facing_ban_in_germany/5643/ [upi.com] and several other countries have taken steps to limit scientology within their borders. While many might seek to compare this to the actions of many Islamist states, scientology's claims often involve situations that fall under racketeering laws not aspects of religious freedom.

Re:Is this legal?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm an eBay PowerSeller, and I can tell you that it's rampant. eBay's "VeRO" program is regularly abused by liars who have no right to interfere in aftermarket sales of their products, gambling on the fact that you won't file in federal court to contest their "good faith" declarations.

Re:Is this legal?

[Romancer (19668)]

Preventing the resale is one thing, direct access to a market is unprecidented. Since scientology doesn't actually own these devices any longer and ebay has given then direct access to removing these devices from private sale this is definatly a step over the line.

Imagine if the makers of the other products out there followed suit. You would not be able to purchase second hand goods. Only directly from the original outlet. Kinda stifles the economy since the majority of vehicles out there are purchased as used items. Just one example but it would have a very bad impact if this method of controlling profit spreads.

yes of course it is

[Quadraginta (902985)]

E-Bay is private firm, and they're free to list or not list sales on their site for any reason whatsoever, including because the "Church" of Scientology asserts some utterly bogus intellectual property right, or because they just feel like it.

The C of S is not "preventing the resale of their product," they're just preventing the resale through E-Bay and with E-Bay's cooperation. You can still put an ad in the paper and sell it, or put up a notice in your neighborhood market, or just walk around town with a sign attached to you saying "E-Meter Cheap!"

And who gives a shit what the lawyers think? Why should the law be relevant here? This isn't a question you want the lawyers thinking about, because you can be damn sure that any solution they think up is going to cost you far more in cash and personal liberty than you would like to part with. Do you want there to be a law telling you what you can and cannot sell on your personal website? Do you want to have to get your Craigslist ad vetted by the police before it can go up? Do you want the FBI to have the right to interrogate you about whether you sold your pet cat or unused furniture to the right people, and in the right way?

Christ, let us keep the lawyers in the fridge, OK? If there's a big market for secondhand E-meters, and E-Bay foolishly foregoes it because they want to keep the Scientologists happy, then let someone start up a private website devoted to reselling E-Meters, and he will make scads of money, more than enough to dare the "Church" to sue him, and get their clueless clock cleaned and get hit for beaucoup lawyer fees on top of it.

But what I suspect is that ex-Scientologists who want to recoup some of the financial loss associated with their recent vacation from rationality are a very small group, and while it kinda sucks that when there's very few of you and a whole lot of someone else (in this case, non-ex-Scientologists, or pre-ex-Scientologists), you have to tread carefully, that's just life in a wide-open democracy. It's not like an intelligent and determined person can't work around this problem fairly easily. I'm sure if I had an E-Meter to sell, I could do it easily enough without E-Bay or the Church getting a clue. Probably my 16-year-old could, too.

What will Anonymous do?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that given the recent Project Chanology protests against Scientology, this would be the perfect time for Anonymous to organize a massive boycott of eBay. Or worse, expand their DOS and hack attacks to include eBay, since they're cooperating with the CoS.

Posting this AC because, frankly, I don't want anybody to think I'm advocating this. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

I hope that's just blustering...

[Valdrax (32670)]

[L]ast I tried a DOS on eBay for fucking with my mother's account, it only took a mere 5,000 simulataneous requests every ten seconds to DOS them.

Err, did you forget to click the Post Anonymously checkbox before admitting to an act which may carry civil and/or criminal penalties?

do they also have access to customer info?

[Reality Master 201 (578873)]

Do they just have the ability to delete sales, or do they also have access to the details of who's been bidding, selling, and buying?

Yet another reason to not use EBay or PayPal.

Curious

[jav1231 (539129)]

Who knew the NSA is the least the vast conspiracy-minded unwashed have to fear.

I wonder who at eBay is high up the kook-chain in Scientology?

Re:Curious

[Dekortage (697532)]

Well, if you RTFA, it has nothing to do with insider knowledge. Instead:

"The mechanism that permits the Church of Scientology (and others) such broad access and discretion is called the Verified Rights Owner ("VeRO") Program. Membership in VeRO is obtained simply by submitting a form to eBay explaining that you are an Intellectual Property rights holder. ... It should come as little surprise that VeRO members routinely overreach, as the cost of challenging a listing removal is almost always prohibitive. ... The VeRO Program makes a great deal of sense for some types of listings -- counterfeit Rolexes and Gucci handbags appear on eBay with such frequent regularity that those companies would be hard pressed to handle these trademark violations any other way."

eBay has more info about their VeRO program [ebay.com].

Basically, the original summary is misleading: lots of companies (e.g. copyright/trademark holders) have access to directly delete auctions on eBay. The Slyentologists are only one of many (but they're fun to pick on!).

does this work for every producer

[PrinceAshitaka (562972)]

If I am the manufaturer of a widgit, what do I have to do to gain access to Ebay to delete whatever auctions I want? Do I just have to write in the EULA that I have this right and then go onto Ebay and delete the auctions of competitors.

F-meter

[by Anonymous Coward]

I think their membership is ready for an F-meter which indicates just how much they are being fucked over by their own church.

Uh, what?

[ack154 (591432)]

I was under the impression this was exactly the kind of reason eBay existed. "hey, i don't use this junk anymore, what'll you give me for it?" If the "church" was really given this kind of power, that's just not right.

Perhaps if they wanted to curb the resale of their devices, they should offer some sort of buy back program? They'll still turn around and sell them again and make a profit.

Off topic, yet...

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Shawn Lonsdale, whose one-man crusade against Scientology made him a public enemy of the church, was found dead at his home over the weekend in an apparent suicide. He was 39."

http://www.xenu-directory.net/critics/lonsdale1.html [xenu-directory.net]

That's pretty sad.

mod parent up

[by Anonymous Coward]

This is important and it is relevant to the main story, because Co$ victims are often first thought to have committed suicide. There is a direct link between the main story and this news. Co$ is a dangerous cult.

Anything for Tom

[sweetser (148397)]

It is a privilege to do everything in our power for Tom. This crap is so valuable, you should pay a lot to prove you are a sucker.

indulgences

[SoupGuru (723634)]

Hopefully the Catholics won't find out I've been reselling my indulgences too!

Ebay is right on schedule

[MECC (8478)]

If what they want is to put an end to their online existence. Giving CoS carte blanc to delete auctions is worse that putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Was Ebay, presumable savvy to how the Internet works, thinking nobody would notice this? What kind of drugs do you have to take to get that delusional?

The cat is out of the bag anyway

[Gordonjcp (186804)]

A quick google for "e-meter schematic" reveals about 1200 pages. The first few that I checked have the circuit diagram for the e-meter, often directly drawn from L. Ron Hubbard's 1966 patent.

For those who can't figure out the diagram, it's basically a Wheatstone bridge with a simple (crappy) differential amplifier. It's the sort of thing anyone could build from pennies worth of components.

This is perfectly legal

[arkham6 (24514)]

The government is not stopping sale of e-meters, and eBay, as a private vendor, can fully decide what and what not can be sold on their site. If they choose not to allow sale of e-meters, then thats their prerogative.

The CoS is not doing anything illegal either, since they are acting now as an agent of E bay.

But I think a much better question is, what did scientology do to eBay to get them to agree to this?

E-meter like a condom

[cgfsd (1238866)]

I would equate an E-meter to that of a condom. Two things you would never want to buy used and two things used for screwing people.

Holy crap NO

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

Given Scientology's record of fraud and abuse, should eBay give them this level of trust?

The answer is right there. Would you want any group with Scientology's record of fraud and abuse to have access to anything important?

What do you want to bet they'd pull auctions of other Scientology-questionable stuff that isn't e meters?

Put a DVD copy of Anonymous' Scientology protests [youtube.com] up for sale and watch what happens. What do you want to bet that it winds up deleted? Blocking e meter sales my ass - this is nothing more than some goofy cult making decisions about what you're allowed to buy. Don't let it happen!

These people are batshit fucking insane. Don't legitimize them by giving them any sort of power, control, or authority whatsoever.

Most important reason:

[WolfTheWerewolf (84066)]

... so the CoS can get the name and address of the auction lister, then Fair Game them as they see fit.
According to eBay's VeRO ToS they will gladly hand this information over.

Completely Misleading

[Kashra (1109287)]

Of course, another completely misleading headline and article summary.

The VeRO program does not provide direct access to eBay's database to delete items. It is a fast-track for manufacturers to submit deletion requests for items they believe are infringing on their copyrights. Every time an auction is deleted, the VeRO program gives eBay the proper documents holding the manufacturers legally responsible for their claim of copyright infringement.

Taking a simple look at the program's description [ebay.com] reveals that ANY auction being deleted through this program can be reinstated, automatically, by the user, within 10 days. They simply have to do the same thing the manufacturer did: claim legal responsibility for their auction, in writing.

Now, there's no doubt that I, as a private individual, would never risk challenging the very well funded battery of lawyers the Church of Scientology has to keep me in line. Even though I know they have no leg to stand on, I can't afford the legal battle. But I wouldn't cry that its eBay's fault, when eBay gave me the option to directly challenge the "manufacturer".

Microsoft vs. the Church of Scientology

[touretzky (215593)]

Q: What's the difference between Microsoft and the Church of Scientology?

A: One is a wealthy and powerful criminal enterprise bent on world domination, while the other, ah, ummm.... Microsoft has better health benefits.

Re:easy answer -or- +5 insightful

[Wuhao (471511)]

If that's "+5 Insightful" around here these day, then I want a piece of the action: 1 + 1 = 2. This profound result is equally surprising.

Re:how direct an access is what bother me more

[Applekid (993327)]

At the top of that page:

This list of rights owners DOES NOT include all rights owners that report through the VeRO Program. These are the rights owners that have chosen to post About Me pages. Many other rights owners have chosen not to maintain an About Me page.

Re:a bit misleading

[sholden (12227)]

Not sure if scientologists are exactly the group I'd want ebay to "we can (and you authorize us to) disclose your User ID, name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email, and company name to eBay VeRO Program participants as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity."