Reputations for Sale

[Robert Hettinga]

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Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 09:16:56 -0800
From: "Daniel J. Boone" <djb at alaska.net>
Organization: ROMEA
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: rah at shipwright.com
Subject: Reputations for Sale

Hi, Robert!  Given your interest in reputation capital, I thought you would be
amused to know that right now (9:11 AM Alaska time, 1:11 PM Eastern) there is a
discussion going on at
Http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewBoard&name=qa
regarding the sale of an online commercial reputation.  Messages on this board
scroll away in about two hours, so if you actually want to look, be quick.

eBay, as you may know, is an online auction site where one can build a
reputation through a numerical feedback mechanism.  Someone is suggesting
building up accounts until they have a respectable feedback level and then
auctioning them off to new sellers who lack the patience to earn feedback the
old-fashioned way.  These are not folks who are clueful, for the most part,
about such issues; it's just a business idea to this guy.  I think it's
fascinating.

Take care --

Daniel

P.S.  If you think this would be of interest to any of your lists, feel free to
repost it.  I'd post it to Cypherpunks, but I'm not currently subscribed there.

=================================================================
Daniel J. Boone                      |	"No man's life, liberty,
Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, P.C.  |	 or property is safe when
P.O. Box 21211                       |   the Legislature is in
Juneau, Alaska  99802                |	 session."
                                     |
(907) 586-3340	                     |	 --Judge Gideon J. Tucker
 Fax: 586-6818	                     |	   New York, 1866
=================================================================

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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'