The IPKat has been a bit slack in failing to report that the French Council of Sales is taking eBay to court in France, arguing that it is failing to comply with a 2000 Act on the regulation of auctions. The Council is arguing that eBay has an unfair advantage over other auctioneers in failing to comply with the Act. As well as the potential for the sale of counterfe
its, concerns have been raised regarding tax evasion by eBay users and fakes more generally, such as the user who want sent a photocopy of the picture he thought he had purchased, stuck to a block of wood. eBay counters that that it is not an auctioneer, and so does not fall within the scope of the Act since it only acts as an intermediary to put buyers and sellers in touch with each other.
The IPKat can sort of see the point of the unfair competition argument, if eBay really can be counted as an auction house, but wouldn’t it rather be the equivalent of the the classified pages at the back of a newspaper? However, he has a limited degree of sympathy for the consumers. Yes, they shouldn’t be duped, but they’re well aware of the limited safeguards that are available on a forum like eBay.
