Ebay Backtrack on Live8
Free trade for all on Ebay except owners of Live8 tickets
http://www.ebay.co.uk
As Bob Geldof calls for a boycott of Ebay due to the appearance of auctions selling Live8 tickets, it seems that Ebay have started to play the backtracking game.
Sir Bob is reported as saying:
"What eBay are doing is profiteering on the backs of the impoverished."
It's reported that originally, Ebay's viewpoint was:
"We are allowing the tickets because we live in a free market where people can make up their own minds about what they would like to buy and sell," she said.
"A ticket to the Live 8 concert is no different from a prize won in a raffle run by another charity and what the winner chooses to do with it is up to them.
"eBay believes it is a fundamental right for someone to be able to sell something that is theirs whether they paid for it or won it in a competition," she said.
But when I logged into Ebay today I saw this:
***Message from Doug McCallum: LIVE 8 Ticket Sales***
14 June, 2005 | 07:34PM BST
Dear all,
Today you have made it very clear to us that our previous decision to allow the sale of LIVE 8 tickets on eBay.co.uk was not one that the vast majority of you agreed with. As a result of this clear signal from the Community we have decided to prohibit the resale of LIVE 8 tickets on the site.
Although the resale of tickets is not illegal, we think that this is absolutely the right thing to do. We have listened to the views you expressed on the discussion boards and in the many emails you have sent to us. We shall be working over the next few hours to remove all LIVE 8 ticket listings from the site.
Thanks for taking the time to contact us and make your views heard,
Regards,
Doug McCallum
Managing Director, eBay (UK) Ltd.
On behalf of the whole eBay.co.uk team
this seems to fly right in the face of their previous points of view.
What happened to the hard nosed face of capitalism and the moral rights to do legal business. It's a slippery slope.......
slope
I think what bothered eBay the most here isn't that the sellers were profiting, it's the (justified) charge that eBay, too, was profiting from this.
An easy way out would've been to just take all of their own profits from these Live 8 ticket auctions and donate them 100% to TASO, Africare, or one of the other larger fund raising-based charities that help the African continent.
But there comes a time when doing the Right Thing trumps doing what the law allows you to do, esp. when the community is calling for such action.
This auction just about sums
This auction just about sums it up for me
Slippery slope?
I think "slippery slope" is way overstating this. Sounds almost like Daily Mail headline material.
I assume eBay could see a storm of negative publicity from this and decided to do what's best for their business and try to look like the good guys. So yes, in fact that is capitalism at work - it's all for their own interests.