eBay Wins Dismissal of US Lawsuit Over Alleged Sale of Harmful Products (reuters.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit accusing eBay of violating environmental laws by allowing the sale of hundreds of thousands of harmful products on its platform, including pesticides and devices to evade motor vehicle pollution controls. U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant in Brooklyn ruled on Monday that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over user content, shielded eBay from liability in the civil lawsuit.
The judge said eBay's administrative and technical support to sellers "does not materially contribute to the products' alleged unlawfulness" and does not make the San Jose, California, company a "publisher or speaker" on sellers' behalf. Merchant also said eBay was not a "seller" of some of the challenged products, because it did not physically possess them or hold title. She rejected the government's argument that eBay was a seller because it exchanged the products for money. The U.S. government argued eBay violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the sale of harmful products, including more than 343,000 aftermarket "defeat" devices that help vehicles generate more power and get better fuel economy by evading emissions controls. The company also was accused of allowing sales of 23,000 unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use pesticides, as well as distributing more than 5,600 paint and coating removal products that contained methylene chloride, a chemical linked to brain and liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The judge said eBay's administrative and technical support to sellers "does not materially contribute to the products' alleged unlawfulness" and does not make the San Jose, California, company a "publisher or speaker" on sellers' behalf. Merchant also said eBay was not a "seller" of some of the challenged products, because it did not physically possess them or hold title. She rejected the government's argument that eBay was a seller because it exchanged the products for money. The U.S. government argued eBay violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the sale of harmful products, including more than 343,000 aftermarket "defeat" devices that help vehicles generate more power and get better fuel economy by evading emissions controls. The company also was accused of allowing sales of 23,000 unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use pesticides, as well as distributing more than 5,600 paint and coating removal products that contained methylene chloride, a chemical linked to brain and liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Another casualty of loper-bright (Score:2, Offtopic)
I would guess a full half of our environmental regulations are a single court case away from being overturned.
On the other hand, if some future president decides to, oh, I dunno, mak
Not about Loper Bright (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with the Loper Bright decision.
The judge here ruled that eBay is protected by Sec. 230, so they can't be sued for what their users post for sale.
Suing the sellers of items that allow for evading pollution controls is still on the table.
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I dont believe thats coincidence. That’s probably what happened here as well. Loper-b
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No, it just pushed the Exec branch BACK to it's original starting place of power...it can enforce law...it can't make law.
Till now, the Executive branch has been WAY overstepping their constitutionally mandated job and powers.
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In reality, the US government relied on the chevron deference for decades. Now that it's gone, there are major classes of pollutants that aren't mentioned anywhere in law, and the gov no longer has any power to regulate them. That's great, until you eat a hamburger with way more mouse-dropping content than you're comfortable with. Want to sue? Nope. They broke no laws.
There's probably a ton of safety regulations that are in
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I've long thought our congress critters have been spending FAR more time fund raising and running for office rather than actually doing the job they are elected to do...and taking too many vacations....let them spend the majority of their time doing their jobs, like most of us regular folks do.
They can find experts, have them educate them, and then pass laws. An
Of course (Score:1)
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So they’re just going to continue selling this stuff, right?
If the government wants to stop it, they should go after the sellers, not the marketplace.
That's easy to do:
1. Buy cheat device on eBay.
2. Pay with a credit card or PayPal.
3. Subpoena the seller's information from the payment processor.
4. Make arrest.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
They're only permitting this because... "Interwebs pipes!"
In real life, being a broker for millions of criminal transactions makes you part of a criminal ring but apparently not on the interwebs pipes.
I stopped buying stuff from eBay years ago when I realised they didn't follow consumer laws in the countries in which they operate. Their own consumer protection & compensation schemes appear to follow US law, which is pretty much useless as it puts onerous responsibilities on individual consumers. When the money involved was large enough for it to matter, I had to take the case to court outside of eBay, which was actually much easier & faster & I got full compensation. Contrary to what eBay & PayPal would have us believe, their ToS & claims of final decisions are NOT legally binding & cannot override statutory consumer protection laws.
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What % of their revenue do you think is fraudulent or stolen goods? You know, the ~$10 billion per year?
Probably lots. You did not really think it was a real Rolex did you? That would be dumb.
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Hard to do if they are outside of the US.
But you really want to stop this ? If your State has Yearly Inspections, have random inspections similar to Drunk Driving road blocks. If the auto has one of those devices, you loose your License for one year plus a big fine.
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In most of the states I've lived in, they either don't have inspections at all, or the ones that did have it....they didn't check exhaust for anything...mostly just headlights, windshield wipers, honk the horn and you were done.
Reminds me of record companies trying to sue ISPs. (Score:4, Insightful)
I see a parallel here with record companies suing ISPs [duckduckgo.com] because they're too lazy to sue individuals who pirated their music. Why wouldn't the U.S. government sue individual sellers who sold the harmful stuff? Simple. If they won this case against eBay, they wouldn't have to do all that work. Shortcuts aren't always safe. Forcing eBay to police all the items that go through their service and to ensure the sale of the item doesn't break any federal, in addition to the source and destination laws (states and/or countries) is unrealistic. Had eBay lost this, the ruling would have put a complete damper not only on eBay, but on Craig's List, FB Marketplace, and a ton of other web sites that facilitate sellers and buyers getting together.
Interesting (Score:2)
Does this open the door for other illegal items to be sold?
I may or may not have bought R22 freon from ebay to refill my air conditioner without a license.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)
You hope it was R-22. It was pretty common awhile back to just sell propane as refrigerant on eBay. It was a highly profitable scam, and most people weren't the wiser because it does technically work as a refrigerant (ignoring the whole flammability and not being code compliant aspects, obviously).
Now, if you bought an entire 30 lbs disposable cylinder of the stuff, chances are good that was genuine. But the small bottles that look like what you'd see in the camping supply section of Walmart? Yeah, those tank similarities aren't a coincidence.
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Most fridge use it these days. Even in the USA.
Putting it into central air systems is more iffy, but coming.
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I may or may not have bought R22 freon from ebay to refill my air conditioner without a license.
If it were guns or drugs the popo might care. That your coolant actually cools or your mattress did not come with a tag interests them somewhat less.
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No. The seller is still vulnerable to action from law enforcement. Which has always been the case.
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No they aren't. Because the seller isn't even in America, which is precisely the problem with these online platforms. In many cases the "stores" can't be legally liable for anything. They disappear and then the day after reappear with a different name.
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Eh.
If they really wanted to stop a foreign seller from dumping goods on eBay, they could do it. It is a fair point that they can take on different names and addresses to complicate the situation. But in the end, someone outside of the country still has to ship through a port.
Swapmeet (Score:2)
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ebay handles purchasing, shipping, and manages disputes after the purchase. They have exceeded being a swap meet, they are closer to a building with a bunch of different people selling things but to purchase something you have to a centralized cash register and if there is a major issue you go to the owner of the building instead of the person who sold it to you.
Ebay Is Dead to Me (Score:4, Insightful)
Insane. (Score:3)
I get the section 230 deal but the issue is NOT that they are posting it, the issue is that they are facilitating the sale of items that are in violation of federal law. Either the judge that ruled on this is being an idiot or the DoJ prosecutor totally dropped the ball.
Horrible Decision (Score:5, Informative)
The relevant section reads:
The point of this is to protect an information provider from liability for the information provided. Ok, so this all would seem fine and dandy if eBay were just a content-neutral "classified" section providing a simple platform where sellers of illegal goods could hawk their wares like CragisList.
But the thing is, they are much more than that.
In addition to being an advertising platform. eBay does things like manage shipping, handle returns, and act as an intermediary in disputes between buyers and sellers.
And oh yeah, one more thing: they collect a 10-13% commission on every sale of illegal goods sold on their platform. And they do so knowingly.
All of these activities fall way, way outside the scope of Section 230, which only relieves platforms of liability arising from out of the informational content published on them. Once eBay starts handling financial aspects of illegal transactions, it is far outside the kind of activities Sec. 230 is meant to shield.
The appropriately-named Judge Merchant should be well and truly ashamed of herself for this decision. Disgusting.
How does eBay get paid? (Score:2)
Does eBay charge every seller the same rent for a space, or does it take a cut of the sales price?
IMHo, one is a host, the other is a seller.
These companies need to be held more liable (Score:2)
Even Google keeps throwing me adverts for obviously illegal products, such as tools to tamper with the odometer reading of your car (which are illegal to sell and own where I live). I even reported the ads only to get a "no fucks given, contact the company running the advert" email in reply.
With faceless Chinese scammers pushing products via these platforms there's no direct recourse against sellers. We should have a system in place where *someone* is liable at all times. If Google / ebay / Amazon etc want
No need to visit the Dark Web now! (Score:3)
So does this mean eBay and Amazon are in the clear if a hitman decides to contract his services through them?
Asking for a friend.
Biden judge (Score:1)
This is from a Biden-appointed judge, showing how ridiculous was the suit in the first place.