Only on Ebay ...

                      An article by Sue

Maybe I shouldn't really have been surprised. After all, it seems
like anything goes these days.  But when I read that debris from
the space shuttle Columbia was being offered on eBay less than a
day after Columbia had been destroyed during re-entry to Earth's
atmosphere early in February, it made me feel quite queasy.

Okay, some of it is 'just' Columbia memorabila, a belt buckle or a
t-shirt which had been up for sale before the disaster. But other
items were described as 'debris' with an alleged starting price of
$10,000. It was gratifying to read that eBay moderators had taken
steps to shut down such tacky auctions. But there's something
sickening about the fact that the price of basic memorabilia had
jumped in price after the weekend's disaster.  The belt buckle I
just mentioned had started at $9.99 but leapt to $350 the day of
the disaster. Other items showed comparable jumps in price.
Similar objects offered for sale before the disaster had not only
not achieved such high prices, but in some cases hadn't sold at
all, not attracting a single bid.

What sort of a stance should sites like eBay take, though?
There's no legal reason why genuine pre-disaster items relating to
Columbia shouldn't be put onto eBay, at any time. At the time of
writing this article, a search for the word 'Columbia' still turns
up a number of collectables such as patches and photos, but very
few bids are being placed on them and the prices are back to
normal levels. There's certainly no mention of 'debris'.  There's
no reason why collectables shouldn't be sold and the fact that a
ghoulish few are willing to pay vastly inflated prices for items
connected with a disaster by association says more about them than
the original owners who are selling the stuff.

EBay has always had a reputation for selling weird and wonderful
items. I think the story about someone offering a kidney is
probably an urban myth, but other sales are just as strange.
There's actually a category called Everything Else:  Weird Stuff:
Totally Bizarre. The Blues News site at www.bluesnews.com has a
regular 'auction of the day' link. Alex told me about someone who
was auctioning 'nothing' ... and people were bidding on it. The
one for 25th February was an 'almost mint condition breakfast
buritto' - plate not included. The auction was only up for a day
because someone in the seller's house ate half the buritto, and
the auction was closed early.  Shame. I would have liked to see if
anyone bought it.

Other items in the same category included fake bullet holes,
contract rights to a future Mike Tyson opponent (cue picture of
little dog in shorts and boxing gloves, I was the 1241st person to
view the auction), a Sigmund Freud action figure, a backwards
clock and a flying pig Monopoly piece (cute). There were a number
of auctions that I just wouldn't click on after reading the title.
I'm not offended by the fact people offer such things for sale,
just not interested in reading the details. Others might be very
offended by some of the items listed, we're all different and what
freaks out one person will leave someone else looking puzzled at
their horrified expression. But the day I checked there were 113
pages of similar items. With 25 items per page, that's a lot of
weird stuff! And a lot of potential to offend.

Most of it, though, is harmless. But it begs the question. If the
Internet is as free and easy as it purports to be, how much
nannying should go on? You aren't allowed to sell body parts on
eBay, but where should eBay draw the line of 'items likely to
upset or cause offense'? Or should it be left to the user, much
like TV? If you don't like the looks of it, don't watch it ... and
don't click the link or bid on it!










                              - o -