Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Can ebay be sued for discriminatory practices?

Today I was notified by ebay that a number of my listings were deleted from the system. The reasons given were that, for some, the listings contained a reference to my website and that anything with a ''.com'' pertaining to one's own business is not allowed in an ebay listing. The reason given for other listings was that the title contained a reference to another product (for example) ''Bicycle playing cards for sale, as good as Bee''. They claim that this is also in violation of ebay listing policy. However, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of listings similar to this on ebay. If they are going to delete mine, for which I have invested money in products and also time and effort into my listings, why should all these other listings go untouched? One example is a blazing case of discrimination in my opinion. They say they do not allow www.(blank).com within a listing but one ebay user's name is the name of their website. www.(blank).com is their actual user name! The account has been in effect for over 3 years. They are a ''power seller'' with over 50,000 items sold on ebay. I highly doubt ebay will be deleting any of their listings due to the blatant ''www.'' advertising within them. I think ebay should be sued.


Asked on 12/20/04, 2:01 am

2 Answers from Attorneys
Stephen Loeb Law Office of Stephen R. Loeb

Re: Can ebay be sued for discriminatory practices?

On what grounds? E-bay is a private entity, they are allowed to set their own policy and have full discretion to decide who they want to allow as users of the system and who they want to deny access to. And under what terms, they are free to negotiate with their clients/customers or to deny a customer/client access to their site. There is no legal obligation to require them to let you access e-bay. There is no legal right for you.

Should you like to discuss this or any other legal matter, you can call my office to schedule an appointment for a consultation or in the alternative, I can be reached for on-phone low-cost legal consultation at 1-800-275-5336 x0233699.

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Answered on 12/20/04, 9:15 am
Walter LeVine Walter D. LeVine, Esq.

Re: Can ebay be sued for discriminatory practices?

I concur with Steve. I suggest you try to conform to their rules. You might want to talk directly to them about this issue and see what changes they might consider.

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Answered on 12/20/04, 10:32 am


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