Monday, August 11, 2008

eBay Not Liable for Fake Tiffany Items, Yet

eBay is the great international flea market. While I've never used the service (I have enough stuff thankyouverymuch), millions of people use it to find what they need at a much cheaper price than you can find in a store.

Of course sometimes that price is cheap for a reason.

Tiffany's sued the online retailer, claiming the company turned a blind eye to fake merchandise being trafficked on the site. Now, the jeweler is appealing that ruling.

The rapid growth of the Internet has thrown into question many assumptions that hold true in the physical realm. In this case, Tiffany's believes that eBay -- which simply connects individuals together -- should also police what those individuals are selling. eBay has a different take.

Muddying the waters is a recent decision in French court that held eBay should be held liable for facilitating the sale of counterfeit goods.

For netizens, the victory was a welcome relief, ensuring that the misdeeds of individuals not become the responsibility of companies. Had Tiffany's won, they posit, the underlying architecture of Web-based businesses would have been placed at risk. Also at risk was individual privacy. If companies such as eBay were forced to police every item, they would have been responsible for tracking every transaction, a reality that would have increased the cost of doing business and slowed down the real-time interactions.

But the victory in U.S. court doesn't mean the battle is over. Already other industries are readying their legal challenges to the eBay system.

Posted By Brad at 03:51 PM
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