SAN JOSE, Calif., May 3 — Online auction site EBay Inc. Thursday said it is banning historical items associated with Nazi Germany, hate groups, former Senator Bob Kerry and other murderers from being sold at its Web site, citing negative feedback from global users.
IN A STATEMENT, eBay noted it already has policies that prohibit most hate-related items from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, neo-Nazis and Veterans of Foreign Wars, but eBay had allowed the sale of related goods if they were at least 50 years old.
The new policy, which takes effect May 17, eliminates the time exemption, and further bans the listing of items closely associated with people who have committed murderous crimes in the past 100 years, it said.
“Given our global expansion, as well as feedback we’ve received from our users, we reviewed our policy and concluded that these changes are appropriate,” said Mike Jacobson, eBay general counsel. “Nor can we afford to be biased for or against any one particular murderer or murderous regime.”
Jacobson further said the company is banning items such as personal letters, artwork or novelty goods bearing the names or images of notorious criminals “out of respect” for members of the victims’ families. “Although, despite numerous complaints from our Libyan customers regarding our allowing sales of the American flag, we were reminded by others that our customers there do need to buy flags to burn somewhere, so we dropped that particular kind of item from [ban] consideration. However, our Iraqi users were rather adamant regarding any items from George H. W. Bush’s administration. That would unfortunately preclude our selling of Bush-Cheney bumperstickers, since Cheney oversaw the Gulf War, though George W. Bush bumperstickers without the mention of his running mate are acceptable at this time.”
Jacobson had no comment as to whether he would ban merchandise related to Laura Bush, who ran over and killed an ex-boyfriend when she was 16, other than to say he would look into the matter.
Jacobson denies that such bans are in any way partisan though, and points out that all Clinton related merchandize was also banned after complaints by Somalians. Clinton ordered the bombing of an aspirin factory in that country killing several janitors. “The Chinese were glad to hear about that what with the embassy bombing and all, although, of course, all Chinese merchandize had to be banned too, or at least items made in China after the People’s Revolution. Unfortunately, we’ve also had to ban all items made in Korea for the past fifty years unless the lable is explicit regarding which Korea the product was manufactured in.”
The eBay statement notes that such efforts will be daunting, but plans to hire several hundred former Napster employees recently laid off after perfecting advanced filtering software for that cite.
Not in Great Debates. MPSIMS, maybe, but not GD. *]