eBay Wins Dismissal of US Lawsuit Over Alleged Sale of Harmful Products (reuters.com)
- Reference: 0175174669
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/01/2116225/ebay-wins-dismissal-of-us-lawsuit-over-alleged-sale-of-harmful-products
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/legal/ebay-wins-dismissal-us-lawsuit-over-alleged-sale-harmful-products-2024-09-30/
> A federal judge dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit [1]accusing eBay of violating environmental laws by [2]allowing the sale of hundreds of thousands of harmful products on its platform , including pesticides and devices to evade motor vehicle pollution controls. U.S. District Judge Orelia Merchant in Brooklyn ruled on Monday that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over user content, shielded eBay from liability in the civil lawsuit.
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> The judge said eBay's administrative and technical support to sellers "does not materially contribute to the products' alleged unlawfulness" and does not make the San Jose, California, company a "publisher or speaker" on sellers' behalf. Merchant also said eBay was not a "seller" of some of the challenged products, because it did not physically possess them or hold title. She rejected the government's argument that eBay was a seller because it exchanged the products for money.
The U.S. government argued eBay violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the sale of harmful products, including more than 343,000 aftermarket "defeat" devices that help vehicles generate more power and get better fuel economy by evading emissions controls. The company also was accused of allowing sales of 23,000 unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use pesticides, as well as distributing more than 5,600 paint and coating removal products that contained methylene chloride, a chemical linked to brain and liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
[1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/09/27/195206/us-sues-ebay-over-sale-of-harmful-products
[2] https://www.reuters.com/legal/ebay-wins-dismissal-us-lawsuit-over-alleged-sale-harmful-products-2024-09-30/
Of course (Score:1)
So they’re just going to continue selling this stuff, right?
Re: (Score:2)
One would hope so. There is obviously demand.
Re: (Score:2)
> So they’re just going to continue selling this stuff, right?
If the government wants to stop it, they should go after the sellers, not the marketplace.
That's easy to do:
1. Buy cheat device on eBay.
2. Pay with a credit card or PayPal.
3. Subpoena the seller's information from the payment processor.
4. Make arrest.
Reminds me of record companies trying to sue ISPs. (Score:3)
I see a parallel here with [1]record companies suing ISPs [duckduckgo.com] because they're too lazy to sue individuals who pirated their music. Why wouldn't the U.S. government sue individual sellers who sold the harmful stuff? Simple. If they won this case against eBay, they wouldn't have to do all that work. Shortcuts aren't always safe. Forcing eBay to police all the items that go through their service and to ensure the sale of the item doesn't break any federal, in addition to the source and destination laws (states and/or countries) is unrealistic. Had eBay lost this, the ruling would have put a complete damper not only on eBay, but on Craig's List, FB Marketplace, and a ton of other web sites that facilitate sellers and buyers getting together.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=record+companies+sue+isp&t=brave&ia=web
Interesting (Score:2)
Does this open the door for other illegal items to be sold?
I may or may not have bought R22 freon from ebay to refill my air conditioner without a license.
Re: (Score:2)
You hope it was R-22. It was pretty common awhile back to just sell propane as refrigerant on eBay. It was a highly profitable scam, and most people weren't the wiser because it does technically work as a refrigerant (ignoring the whole flammability and not being code compliant aspects, obviously).
Now, if you bought an entire 30 lbs disposable cylinder of the stuff, chances are good that was genuine. But the small bottles that look like what you'd see in the camping supply section of Walmart? Yeah, thos
Re: (Score:2)
> I may or may not have bought R22 freon from ebay to refill my air conditioner without a license.
If it were guns or drugs the popo might care. That your coolant actually cools or your mattress did not come with a tag interests them somewhat less.
Re: (Score:2)
No. The seller is still vulnerable to action from law enforcement. Which has always been the case.
Swapmeet (Score:2)
Ebay is basically an online swap meet. So how much would the owner of the facility be liable for merchants trading illegal items inside their building, and are they required to have patrols looking out for such activity?
Ebay Is Dead to Me (Score:2)
20 years ago I could find quality electronic items on Ebay at a reasonable price. Since then it's gradually morphed into the garbage pit of bottom feeders and scam artists that it is today. Ebay has lost my business.
Insane. (Score:2)
I get the section 230 deal but the issue is NOT that they are posting it, the issue is that they are facilitating the sale of items that are in violation of federal law. Either the judge that ruled on this is being an idiot or the DoJ prosecutor totally dropped the ball.
Horrible Decision (Score:2)
As an honest-to-god lawyer, I can only say that this is a staggeringly bad decision, and a total misapplication of Sec. 230.
The relevant section reads:
> "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider".
The point of this is to protect an information provider from liability for the information provided. Ok, so this all would seem fine and dandy if eBay were just a content-neutral "classi
Another casualty of loper-bright (Score:2)
If it’s not explicitly, set-in-stone, brick-in-your-face encoded into federal law, the executive branch has exactly zero power. That’s what loper-bright did. There’s so much happening nowadays that news about the case got buried pretty fast, but it’s gonna change a huge number of things in the US.
I would guess a full half of our environmental regulations are a single court case away from being overturned.
On the other hand, if some future president decides to, oh, I dunno, mak
Not about Loper Bright (Score:3)
This has nothing to do with the Loper Bright decision.
The judge here ruled that eBay is protected by Sec. 230, so they can't be sued for what their users post for sale.
Suing the sellers of items that allow for evading pollution controls is still on the table.
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, as soon as loper bright passed, several high-profile court cases went against the executive branch within a few weeks. Not a single one of them cited loper bright, but the judges almost instantly ruled against the executive branch. The ones about Trump are the most obvious. As soon as loper bright passed, Aileen Canon simply tossed the justice department’s case against Trump, barely saying even a word.
I dont believe thats coincidence. That’s probably what happened here as well. Loper-b