Ebay and Facebook in the headlines yet again

In the emergence of large, profitable websites, there also appears to be an equal number of large and costly law suits against the companies that create these websites. While Ebay and Facebook would apparently have little in common, they are both the centre of recent controversy caused by third parties.

Ebay has recently been fined $65.8 million dollars for failing to stop the sale of counterfeit goods on their online auction site in favour of six LVHM brands (which includes brands such as Louis Vuitton). Ebay have indicated that they will appeal the decision. Similarly, although no action has been taken against Facebook itself, Matthew Firsht has taken an action for damages for a false profile set up on Facebook which made claims about his sexuality and the financial viability of his company.

Ebay has also been the centre of legal controversy in the case of Evagora v Ebay. Evagora successfully bid for a computer in an eBay hosted auction, which was paid for but never arrived. The seller of the computer was based overseas. Evagora claimed for his loss against eBay, arguing that he did not read eBay’s user agreement, and that EBay represented that the auction site was safe, which overrode the terms of the user agreement. EBay was held liable by the Tribunal for the loss suffered by Evagora.

It is therefore question of whether such websites can be accountable for the illegal acts of their users. For ISP's, the answer is that they are protected from liability, unless other circumstances apply (for example, they are issued with a take down notice, example). Should such companies be help responsible for the acts of their users, especially when they are not acting in accordance with the site EULA.

On Slashdot recently was an article about a man called Hiroyuki Nishimura, who has been taken to court over and over again over his site he has created, Japanese site 2channel. While he is happy to comply with mandates to delete things, he refuses to pay any money. He says, in the article, "Would a cell phone carrier feel responsible when somebody receives a threatening phone call?".