From: Paul H. Anderson (pha@pdq.com)
Date: Fri Jan 17 2003 - 08:43:23 PST
As far as I know, other nations (not the United States) have extreme
penalties against buying or selling Nazi memorabilia (or I suppose being a
party to such a sale). eBay can't fight the laws there, nor can they
readily keep people from specific nations from accessing eBay. So, they
cave in by prohibiting them.
Guns, unfortunately, probably fall victim to the same basic problem.
I don't mean to defend eBay, but in this case, from a legal and technical
perspective, allowing trading of guns or nazi stuff would put their
business at great peril. I'm sure politics plays into it, as well.
I think of it as a "dumbing down" effect - meet the lowest common
denominator of the common nations that scare eBay lawyers the most.
I wonder, though, how much water this line of reasoning holds, as someone
just noted about the Japanese items being sold (dunno if Japan restricts
sale/buying of Japanese war memorabilia).
Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 13:25:00 PDT