The following is not meant to be legal advice.
On
People do not like to self report because there are people who go on the Internet to defraud. They do not want other people to see what kind of transactions or interests they have. Companies like eBay have a feedback system to show how a transaction went, but it is a reactive approach to a transaction not going well.
eBay does not allow users to have user IDs that are the same as their email addresses. If a user ID is the same as the email address, the user ID is being displayed to the community. This allows for spam and phishing.
eBay further prevents fraud by limiting the chances for people who underbid. People who bid again after a deal has fallen through run into trouble with fake second chances that take the user to a similar web site to be defrauded.
"People do not like to self report because there are people who go on the Internet to defraud. They do not want other people to see what kind of transactions or interests they have."
What people would this be? Older, wiser people? It seems to me that social sites like Facebook and MySpace encourage self reporting (including up to the minute feeds on what the member is doing), and it appears that the younger generation enjoys this sort of personal display on the Web, either because they are unaware of the possible consequences, or think that no harm can come to them in the virtual world, or don't care. In any case, I appreciate your comments on the subject of privacy vs. Web 2.0, even though I'm a member of the choir, so to speak.
Posted by: Charles | November 13, 2007 7:40 AM | Permalink to Comment