eBay 2002 Annual Report Download - page 13

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takes appropriate action, including issuing warnings to users or suspending users from bidding on or listing
items for sale. Some of the complaints the SafeHarborTM staÅ investigates include various forms of bid
manipulation, malicious posting of negative feedback and posting of illegal items for sale. The
SafeHarborTM group is organized into three areas: Investigations, Fraud Prevention and Community
Watch. The Investigations team investigates reported trading infractions and misuse of the eBay service.
The Fraud Prevention department provides information to assist users with disputes over the quality of the
goods sold or potentially fraudulent transactions and, upon receipt of an oÇcially Ñled, written claim of
fraud from a user, will generally suspend the oÅending user from the eBay service or take other action as
appropriate. The Community Watch department investigates the listing of illegal, infringing or
inappropriate items on the eBay.com site and our international websites and violations of certain of our
policies. Upon receipt of a valid written claim of intellectual property infringement by the owner of the
intellectual property, we will remove the oÅending item. Users who repeatedly infringe intellectual property
rights are suspended. In addition, we have increased the number of people reviewing potentially illegal
items. Our trust and safety initiatives, including user identity veriÑcation, insurance, integrated escrow and
authentication, are key elements of our programs designed to make eBay a safe place to trade.
My eBay
We oÅer My eBay, which permits users to receive a report of their recent eBay activity, including
bidding, selling, account balances, favorite categories and recent feedback. Users with their own Web
pages also may post links from their Web pages to eBay and list the items they are selling on eBay. We
also oÅer About Me, which provides users the opportunity to create their own personal home page free of
charge on eBay using step-by-step instructions. The About Me home page can include personal
information, items listed for sale, eBay feedback ratings, images and links to other favorite sites.
eBay Foundation
In June 1998, we donated 643,500 shares of our common stock to the Community Foundation Silicon
Valley, a tax-exempt donor-advised public charity, and established a fund known as the ""eBay
Foundation.'' Since its inception, the eBay Foundation has made millions of dollars in grants to dozens of
programs and initiatives focused on education and expanded access to technology. We also seek user
suggestions for worthwhile charities through our website, where charity auctions and other unique
promotions are held to support such causes.
Technology
Our eBay Platform
The eBay platform is composed of a scalable transaction processing system, consumer user interface,
and externally accessible Application Programming Interface, API, for third-party integrations. The
scalable system is primarily based on internally developed proprietary software, but also includes selected
vendor components. The eBay platform supports the full selling and buying processes, including initial
registration for the service, placing bids and managing outbids, listing items for sale, and auction close.
The platform also manages various notiÑcations for sellers and buyers, including daily status updates, bid
and outbid notices, registration conÑrmations, account change notices, billing notices, and end-of-auction
notices. The platform maintains user registration information, billing accounts, current item listings and
historical listings. All information is regularly archived for record-keeping and analysis purposes. The
platform regularly updates a comprehensive search engine with the titles and descriptions of items, as well
as pricing and bidding updates for active items. The platform also updates the seller's billing account every
time an item is listed, a feature is selected, or an auction closes with a bid in excess of the seller-speciÑed
minimum bid. The platform sends electronic invoices to all sellers on a regular (at least monthly) basis. In
addition to these features, the eBay service also supports a community bulletin board and chat areas where
users and eBay customer support personnel can interact. Our overall system volume is signiÑcant, with
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