EBay Scraps Plans to Offer Live Pets
Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. has canceled plans to allow live pets to
be sold on its Web site after receiving thousands of angry letters
from users.
The San Jose-based company has long banned the sale of live animals
except fish and snails, and officials said Monday they were scrapping
plans to create a separate classifieds category that would feature
free ads from animal shelters and paid ads from breeders.
Over the weekend, an eBay manager revealed in a posting to an online
message board that the company was considering lifting the ban,
prompting letters from more than 2,000 users, most of whom urged that
the ban remain, said company spokesman Hani Durzy.
Users were worried the listings would encourage puppy mills, where
animals are sometimes bred in unsanitary conditions, and that it would
be difficult to differentiate between legitimate animal shelters and
unsavory sources.
"The feedback was pretty overwhelming," Durzy said. "Farms and
for-profit commercial breeders wasn't something that they wanted to
see."
Booming sales of pet supplies -- and the possibility that users may
want a pet listing service -- had prompted the company to reconsider
its ban on the sale of live animals, Durzy said.
Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think it was horrible that eBay would
have even considered the sale of animals through its web site to start
with. Most buyer/sellers do business over a long distance using the
mail or a delivery service. How is a dog or cat or other animal
supposed to feel if it gets shoved into a box, sealed up inside, very
possibly with no food or water, very possibly freezing cold weather,
and delivered thousands of miles away and a couple days later to some
total stranger it has never seen before? PAT]
Associated Press News Wire (ap@telecom-digest.org)