For those of you unable to follow my live Twitter feed from the press conference yesterday morning (granted, for those of you on the West coast I started at 5am), I attempted to capture a lot of the sentiment coming out of an event featuring retailers, consumer advocates and government representatives who promised a hearing in the New Year and a re-introduced, two-page bill to ban RPM or “price-fixing.” This would overturn the Leegin Supreme Court decision of 2007 (see my previous post for background).

Those in favor or RPM – like The National Association of Manufacturers for example – say it prevents deep discounters from hurting brands’ prestige or perceived quality. Instead of “price-fixing” they see it as brand management. But according to American Antitrust President, Bert Foer, this is missing the big picture. “The Supreme Court underplayed the magnitude of the anticompetitive risks of price-fixing. The Court did not account for the fact that it leads to higher prices, reduced efficiency and lost innovation in retailing. They failed to recognize how those risks have grown with increasing retail concentration.”

The panel of policymakers and retail advocates including eBay’s VP of global government relations, Tod Cohen (pictured above), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour, offered a number of different courses of action to address the impact of RPM / price fixing including definitive government action and support. Harbour also announced that starting early next year, the FTC will hold a series of workshops educating people on best practices of RPM.

It was a good discussion that saw a number of representatives sharing their views and expressing a desire to work toward a common goal. BabyAge.com President Jacob Weiss shared pricing examples showing that prices rose 20 to 40 percent after the Leegin decision on several popular products from car seats to backpack child carriers. Weiss provided screenshots showing the same $60 price for Elmo Live toys from ToysRUs.com, Walmart.com, Amazon.com and Target.com.

Audio
• You can listen to NPR’s coverage of the event yesterday by clicking HERE.

• Full audio of the press conference is now available HERE.

Images
• Some photos from the event can be found on eBay’s Government Relations’ new Flickr feed.

Related Information
• You can learn more about eBay’s stance on price-fixing HERE.

• To see the majority of the media stories covering this topic, and to find out more about how you can get involved, check out protectconsumerchoice.org.

Cheers,
RBH

Aside from the ever-evolving threat of phishing and malware (stay tuned for more on that), attendees of the event heard about the latest trends, tools and techniques developed by the eBay team to assist the investigators in cases involving online fraud, stolen property and counterfeit goods. Check out real cases in the eBay police blotter.

The day started with an overview of eBay and PayPal’s Global Law Enforcement Operations. Of special note was eBay’s successful detection, monitoring and takedown strategy which consistently removes potentially fraudulent listings. eBay’s cooperation with intellectual property rights owners through the Verified Rights Owners (VERO) program has resulted in significant decreases in the listings of counterfeit items on eBay. As an intellectual property rights and online safety consultant, I strongly recommend working with eBay through programs like this to fight counterfeiting head-on. The day ended with a superb panel of eBay’s top experts who talked about international investigations. Having worked internationally for many years, I really identified with the thrust of this panel as they explained good cross-border cooperation and liaison, and having trusted partnerships with global enforcement agencies— a proven formula for success. Coincidentally, I gave a similar message to a class of agents at the FBI Academy just the day before.

Overall it was a great day for information sharing and networking to strengthen those very important ties between eBay/PayPal and the enforcement community.

While the majority of transactions occur without a problem, if you suspect fraud or other criminal activity on eBay or any e-commerce site, by all means report it to law enforcement first—here are some good sites: www.ic3.gov, and www.ftc.gov. You should also report suspicious listings and others problems directly to eBay.

Law enforcement officers can contact eBay’s Fraud Investigations Team (FIT) here for assistance and can click here to arrange a training session.

Thanks,
Rich LaMagna
eBay Online Safety Advisor