Fake Blue Peter Badges on sale on eBay

The BBC is fighting the sale of Blue Peter Badges fakes and non-fakes that are sold on eBay and advertised as enabling free entry at many top UK attractions.
For the full story, see:
The Times 27 March 2006 or Yahoo! News 27 March 2006.
For more informatin on hte BLue Peter Badges, see the BBC webpages.

BBC Watchdog warns about PAYPAL practices

Dr Riefa helped the BBC and the Watchdog programme for their report on Paypal broadcasted 28th March 2006. The programme highlighted difficulties faced by sellers. Many complaints have been directed to the BBC with regards to Paypal accounts being frozen for fraud when the seller has already sent the goods and then sees the money received debited back from its account wihtout any possible immediate recourse.

eBay expands operations in Ireland.

The full story on Silicon Republic...

Case against eBay dismissed

The Opticians Act 1989 in the Uk provides that contact lenses must be sold by a registered optician or doctor. However in August 2005, many instances of contact lenses being sold by non-registered agents where highlighted by the General Optical Council who decided to take their case up to court. The charges that eBay had aided the illegal sale of contact lenses were dismissed. The full story on the BBC website...

14/03/2006 Conference Université de Montréal - session on Online auction sites and the protection of individual users

A conference at the Université de Montréal hosted by the Chaire en droit de la sécurité et des affaires électroniques Professor Vincent Gautrais, will look into the protection of Internet Users and the efficiacy of the law in apprehending the Cyber age. A session on online auctions will feature Professor Jacques Robert (HEC Montréal) and Dr Christine Riefa (Brunel University West London).
For the full programme, click here.