Mom Puts in Bid to End Surprise Pictures

Friday, September 1, 2006

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Mom Puts in Bid to End Surprise Pictures

By J’AMY PACHECO

Before I begin my rant, let me say this: I have nothing against naked people.

I’ve seen people naked. I know very proper people who have, at some time or another, very likely been naked. We all, as the old saying goes, come into the world the same way: naked.

So let me repeat: I have nothing against naked people.

I do, however, have a BIG problem with naked people, or to be more specific, pictures of naked people, popping up in places where they don’t belong and are not wanted.

On Aug. 18, my little girl and I sat down to engage in one of our favorite activities – looking at dolls and doll clothing on eBay.From the auction site’s home page, we clicked on one link, then another, to narrow our focus. When the doll listings came up, there, among the pictures of sweet little baby dolls and Barbies, was the image of a naked woman in a…um…rather personal pose.

Imagine my surprise.

It took a moment for the sight to register, but I closed the window and sent my puzzled daughter away, grateful that she didn’t seem to realize what had been on the screen.

I collected my thoughts, then decided to get the item number to report what I thought was an anomaly to eBay. I repeated the two mouse clicks and reluctantly clicked on the auction – the only way to obtain the item number and seller id.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), you can’t obtain that information unless you sign in using your user ID and password. This is, I presume, to protect innocent children from seeing pornographic images like the one that was freely displayed in the “featured items” section of the doll listings.

I was not about to use my password to look at porn, so I wrote down the item description and started trying to figure out how to report the problem.

I soon discovered that unless I was able to provide an item number, there was no method to report the problem – at least, not one that I could find. I settled on a screen meant for reporting error codes, and described the problem. I sent the e-mail, and never received a response.

The auction disappeared, but I kept the eBay telephone number a friend gave me when I told her about our experience. Good thing, because a week later, the same thing happened. This time I was alone; my little shopper has been banned from eBay as a result of the experience we had.

This time, I called the “customer service” number I’d been provided. An automated voice advised me to use a feature called “Live Help,” and promptly disconnected me.

The live help guy gave me a link to report the problem – a link that required an item number. When I pointed that out, he gave me another one that led me right back to where I’d started – with the page intended for reporting error codes. I sent another report into that black hole.

The next morning, I called the customer service number again. I listened for more than 15 minutes to a recording that urged me to report the problem online. The guy who finally came on the line advised that the only way to get the auctions pulled is to find each one and report them.

I don’t want to be the eBay police. I have no intention of trolling their listings on a daily basis looking for porn, logging into the auctions with my password to get the item numbers and e-mailing eBay to tell them about it.

I don’t even want to look at it, and that’s my whole point. If an auction requires an adult password for viewing, the associated pornographic pictures should automatically be prohibited from appearing in the listings.

I’m sure these unprotected pictures must violate some kind of law, just as a bottle of Jack Daniels or a pack of Camels in a high school vending machine would. But I’ll be darned if I can figure out who to tell. The huffy guy on the phone seemed very put out by my suggestion that there has to be a way to correct the problem with programming, and at my insistence the obscene pictures shouldn’t be in the unprotected listings to begin with.

I’d give up, but at this point, I’m not about to let them off the hook.

I have no idea how one mommy makes a monolithic giant of a bazillion dollar corporation listen, but I guess you have to start somewhere.

Hopefully, I just did.