Haaretz.com: Big Brother Is Watching You - and Documenting

Yikes. At a conference last week in Connecticut called "Cyber Crime 2003," Joseph Sullivan, director of the "law enforcement and compliance" at eBay, proudly told a room full of law-enforcement agents how the world's biggest online retailer is only too happy to share reams of data about any of its users in the interest of security. And law enforcers need not trouble with messy subpoenas or the like. A polite request is all they need. The Israeli site Haaretz reports:

One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user's full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed, feedbacks received, bids he has made, prices he has paid, and even messages sent in the site's various discussion groups.