{"id":2971,"date":"2009-11-18T06:04:24","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T14:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=2971"},"modified":"2020-07-01T01:49:27","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T08:49:27","slug":"unthwarted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=2971","title":{"rendered":"Unthwarted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I received notice this morning from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/\">eBay<\/a>:<\/p> <blockquote style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">We received a report about a message you sent to another eBay member through our Email Forwarding System. The message violates the Misuse of eBay Email Forwarding System policy. We want to let you know about the report and invite you to learn more about communication between sellers and buyers. To learn more about the Email Forwarding System guidelines, please go to:<br \/><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/policies\/rfe-unwelcome-email-misuse.html\">&#104;ttp:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/policies\/rfe-unwelcome-email-misuse.html<\/a><br \/><br \/>We're taking a neutral position regarding the report we received, but if we continue to receive similar reports, we'll have to investigate. Policy violations can result in a formal warning, a temporary suspension, or an indefinite suspension.<br \/><br \/>If you have concerns related to this matter, you can contact us by going to:<br \/><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/contact_us\/_base\/index_selection.html\">&#104;ttp:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/contact_us\/_base\/index_selection.html<\/a><\/blockquote> <p>Well, I'd like to know about what message this complaint was levelled.  But, naturally (this being <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/\">eBay<\/a>), there's no appropriate option at <a href=\"http:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/contact_us\/_base\/index_selection.html\">index_selection.html<\/a>, and the best fitting options require that in one field I provide a relevant item number or user <abbr title=\"identity\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">ID<\/abbr> about whom I'm complaining.  My <em>own<\/em> user <abbr title=\"identity\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">ID<\/abbr> is rejected from this field.<\/p> <p>Over the years, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/\">eBay<\/a>, like many other corporations, has modified its interface and protocols to make them dumber in ways that specifically increase the difficulty of confronting it with responsibility.<\/p> <p>eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar, whose user <abbr title=\"identity\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">ID<\/abbr> is <q><code>pierre<\/code><\/q>.  So I entered <em>that<\/em> user <abbr title=\"identity\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">ID<\/abbr> in the field, and it was accepted.  Doubtless that, if others do likewise, then the software will be tweaked to prevent it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I received notice this morning from eBay: We received a report about a message you sent to another eBay member through our Email Forwarding System. The message violates the Misuse of eBay Email Forwarding System policy. We want to let you know about the report and invite you to learn more about communication between sellers [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,29,69,5,4],"tags":[86,202],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-disturbing-the-peace","category-information-technology","category-personal","category-public","tag-ebay","tag-everyday-frustrations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11359,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions\/11359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}