E‐BUYER BEWARE: WHY ONLINE AUCTION FRAUD SHOULD BE REGULATED
Miriam R. Albert · American Business Law Journal · 2002
Part of a special issue on cyber law. The increasing use of the Internet as a medium of commerce has led to an increase in Internet fraud, raising new and challenging legal issues in areas including online auctions. Under current law, a defrauded participant in an online auction transaction has no recourse against the online auction site. However, the FTC should apply its substantial regulatory authority to the creation of binding regulations for online auction sites. Such regulations should include ideas such as authenticating participants' identities, limiting the number of user names per participant, verifying the creditworthiness of participants, offering insurance for the full amount of transactions, offering authentication of items for sale, and establishing mandatory record-keeping provisions, together with all other measures necessary to provide the highest level of consumer protection possible.