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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (28179)	1/15/1999 2:25:00 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 67261

The auction sites usually have a legal disclaimer. Most of the e*commerce sites do, such as Travelocity, LowestFares, etc. The worst offenders are the stock message boards.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (28179)	1/15/1999 7:07:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 67261

>> it seems like ebay could get fined for this, or sued doesnt it? Or are they exempt from false claims their sellers make? << Neither disclaimers or caveat emptor are protection for ebay. Even publications are subject to legal enforcement for consistently running ads for doubtful products. Some years ago the really wild and wooly days of grey market PCs ended when enforcement action started against publications like Infoworld, who had allowed advertisements from those outfits. Publications have also been sued for allowing a consistent practice of deception. In that case some of the computer mags found they could be liable for some credit card irregularities committed by their advertisers. Naturally, there are exceptions for classifieds and so forth, but there are responsibilities. ebay is in much more vulnerable a situation than a publisher. They are basically the 'store'. They facilitate the sale. They profit from the sale. If their sellers are selling knockoffs, represented as the real thing or not, and they acknowledge the Label says Chanel, I think they could be in for trouble. Class action suit, for instance. Also, I think the houses like Chanel have something similar to the SPA, that brings in customs and the feds after they do their own investigation. So whether ebay presents itself as the ad medium or the store, I think they need to look into those practices, and if there are, as some have said, some irregularities, they need to dump those sellers or clean them up before long. Chaz