Evidently Scientologists have enough administrative access to EBay to delete listings that they view as patent infringements, such as the so-called e-meter. (Note, the listing was removed shortly after the screenshot was taken).

How can they do that?

If you’re uninitiated to eBay, you’d probably think that for each of these removals, the Church of Scientology informs eBay of the violation of its rights, eBay considers the merits of their argument, and then only then does eBay yank the listing. But that’s not what happens at all. Instead, eBay effectively deputizes Scientology, which logs into eBay and removes the listings itself.

The mechanism that permits the Church of Scientology (and others) such broad access and discretion is called the Verified Rights Owner (”VeRO“) Program. Membership in VeRO is obtained simply by submitting a form to eBay explaining that you are an Intellectual Property rights holder.

Here’s what you REALLY need to know: Your private information, including UserID, name, address, and phone number can be discovered through this program. From EBay’s VeRO terms:

How your personal information may be released. eBay will never give out your credit card information, except in rare cases when required by a court, or law enforcement agency. However, eBay’s Privacy Policy states, “we can (and you authorize us to) disclose your User ID, name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email, and company name to eBay VeRO Program participants as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity.”

Beware, especially if you bid on or plan to sell secondhand Scientology “e-Meters”. I can’t help wondering what the mechanism is to gain access to this information. It seems pretty indiscriminate, which concerns me. When all of the “violator discretion” is on the side of the one with access to one’s private information, it lends itself to abuse, don’t you think?

Technorati Tags: Scientology, eBay, privacy, patent, copyright

H/T Slashdot