Taken together, three bills in Congress would require online marketplaces and auction sites to secretly police affiliates suspected of selling stolen goods. In addition to requiring extensive record keeping on sellers using the site and turning over that information to authorities upon request, the legislation prohibits resale sites—like eBay or craigslist—from informing suspected sellers they are being investigated.
>> Article Updated 09/29/08
None of the bills, two in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, is expected to come to a vote before the Congressional recess—they’ve got bigger fish to fry in Bailout Brand oil at the moment—but the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security held a hearing on the subject recently.
The purpose of the legislation is to target organized retail crime, or bands of shoplifters and hustlers hocking ill-gotten goods online, where the National Retail Federation, which has come out aggressively in favor of the legislation, says thieves can sell goods at 70 percent value. Street corners typically only bring 30 percent of the retail value.
The problem was highlighted recently when a New York vendor was busted selling traced to Hezbollah and Hamas.
Naturally, the Internet is to blame.
Though, NetChoice’s Steve LaRocca said:
Individually, the bills are: H.R. 6713, the Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008, sponsored by Representative Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind.; and S. 3434, the refused to accept eBay’s offer to help police for stolen goods because they didn’t want to give up any control of the process. Clearly, government control is better then, huh?
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