Posted 11/06/09 at 09:05:57 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Facebook is the king of social networking with more users than any other web 2.0 site. With all those users, it’s also an attractive place for scammers that want access to lots of eyeballs. After a few embarrassments, Facebook is promising to take a stronger stance against deceptive advertising.
 
Facebook has gotten a bit of a black eye in the press lately after some companies using the platform were accused of scamming users. These scams often come in the form of special offers and surveys within games. Facebook’s Nick Giano wrote in a blog post that the site was aware of the problem and was actively working on it.

Users of the site also encountered a rise in stimulus scam ads earlier in the year; Facebook notes that they were quickly removed from the site. Hopefully this new wave of scams can be dealt with in the same manner. Facebook claims that over 100 developer applications have already been removed or “brought into compliance" so far. Have you noticed any fishy behavior on Facebook?

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Posted 07/14/08 at 03:05:14 PM by Chris Moody

eBay is continuing to provoke it’s user base with big changes to it’s business model it seems. If the recent fee hikes were not enough to get sellers on eBay mad, they are furious over the deal eBay struck with Buy.com that allows the company to sell millions of books, DVDs, electronics and other items on eBay without paying the full eBay fees. This is making it hard for small sellers to compete. Since the beginning of the year over five million fixed-price listings from Buy.com have been added.

The reason behind this shift seems to be that eBay’s growth has slowed recently and new CEO John Donahoe, has decided that the future lies with a model more along Amazon’s design and larger sellers as opposed to the small mom and pop sellers that have made eBay such a success. You can read the tale in full over at nytimes.com

Like Obi-Wan said about Mos Eisley, “you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious”. eBay has certainly had it’s shares of trouble makers on the site. Scam artists, Phishers, and con men have run roughshod over good sellers and customers alike. It’s been a good year since I bought anything on eBay because of the hassle of having to look at a seller from every angle to figure out if they are legit. Even worse than that is buyers that would run up the price on an item to retail. You can still get a good deal, but you have to be patient and ready to spend lots of time shopping. I’m just not into that. Given the number of sites complaining about eBay it looks like a number of others are not happy with them either.

Are you still a big user of eBay? Tell me what you like and dislike about the eBay of today.

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