Naked News

. [18]. Among the imitators on the internet:. As well as a long list of other items that are either wholly prohibited or restricted in some manner. The initial success of the show's concept spawned several imitators, mostly on the websites, but also including "The Daily Flash", a news program on Playboy TV. Among the hundred or so banned categories (note that these relate to ebay.com (the US site), other regions may vary in their rules) :. Past male anchors are:. But as eBay grew, it found it necessary to restrict or forbid auctions for various items.

The current male anchors are:. eBay in its earliest days was essentially unregulated. Past female anchors are:.
. The current female anchors are:. One of the largest items ever sold was a World War II submarine, sold by a small town in New England that decided it did not need the historical relic anymore. The female announcers have been featured in almost every media including television (CBS Sunday Morning, The Today Show, The View, Sally Jesse Raphaël, and numerous appearances on Entertainment Tonight and ET Insider) newspapers and magazines, (TV Guide, Playboy) and as guests on multiple radio shows including Howard Stern. Other notable controversies involving eBay include:.

Since the show's inception in 1999, there has been much turnover among the newscasters, and many guest anchors. Frauds committed by buyers include:. The show features occasional on-the-street interviews by topless newscasters, which are made possible by Ontario's Topfree equality laws. Frauds that can be committed by sellers include:. As such, most of the show's crew comes from the Toronto area. Of course, all laws still apply and legal action may also be possible. Most of the show's announcers have been recruited through classified ads in alternative newspapers in Toronto. An eBay account (whether seller, buyer or both) may canceled if there are too many complaints against the account holder.

It was said that events like the 2005 Indian Ocean Earthquake were reported in the nude, while news of the London bombings as well as all follow-up reports and interviews done in the following days, were done fully clothed both in studio and in London. When a user feels that a seller or buyer has been dishonest, a dispute can be filed with eBay. This too has proven to be controversial as observers have complained that stories that warranted "fully-clothed" coverage were, in fact, Western or "Eurocentric" tragedies, while disasters happening elsewhere in the world were deemed "less important." In actuality, the producers of Naked News have instituted a basic rule in this area: No disrobing during any news coverage of a major tragedy anywhere in the world. Weaknesses of the feedback system include:. The anchors have all since continued the tradition of reading tragic events fully clothed. The feedback system can protect sellers as well as buyers; a seller can reject a bid from a potential buyer if the buyer's feedback rating isn't to the seller's liking. She did not undress when she read the news of the death of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, nor for the September 11, 2001 program (which was not aired). Learning the system and examining a seller's feedback history is a buyer's best protection.

Sinclair herself has questioned the appropriateness of disrobing while reading of tragic events. So if a buyer has problems, he can rate the seller "negative" and leave a comment such as "never received product". Critics charge that the nudity is little more than a gimmick that trivializes important news events, while proponents argue that such gimmicks exist on most television news already; nudity is just a particularly successful one. They can give a "positive", "negative", or "neutral" rating and leave a short comment. Naked News has generated some controversy among the media, and even within its own staff. After every transaction both the buyer and seller have the option of rating each other. Victoria Sinclair, the first NN announcer and one of only two with journalism experience, has also received some praise for her newsreading ability. The major fraud prevention mechanism for eBay users is its feedback system.

Naked News has earned some praise from established journalists for its coverage of international news items not often covered in mainstream news media. eBay data shows that less than .01% of all transactions result in a confirmed case of fraud. The show is or has been available on pay-per-view or by subscription in various markets in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and even France (dubbed into French). eBay has its share of controversy, ranging from its privacy policy (eBay typically turns over user information to law enforcement without a subpoena) to well-publicized seller fraud. Its offshoot Naked News TV aired as a late-night television series on the Toronto television station Citytv, and (until February 2005) on British satellite channel Get Lucky TV. The only place where expansion failed was Japan where Yahoo had a head start. Although it was originally targeted towards female viewers (at one point said to be 30% of the website's audience), the male show now openly promotes itself as news from a gay perspective. eBay has already expanded to almost two dozen countries including China and India.

It does not however enjoy the same popularity and fame, and there are currently more female than male anchors. The company's current business strategy includes increasing revenue by increasing international trade within the eBay system. A male version of the show was created in 2001 to parallel the female version. In addition, eBay now owns the PayPal payment system which many buyers use to pay for their purchases, so it often receives an extra fee via that. By 2002, only one news segment could be viewed freely, and by 2004, no free content remained on the website. The eBay fee system is quite complex and takes $0.20 to $80 per listing and 3-5% of the final price. Part of the large amounts of web traffic in the site's early days was because the entire newscast could be viewed for free, though subscribers got access to a higher bandwidth feed and other extras. There are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells.

This number did not refer to the number of actual subscribers of the site, which was believed to be vastly lower. eBay generates revenue from a number of fees. During the height of its popularity, the website was promoted as receiving over 6 million hits per month. eBay's main rivals are Amazon.com Marketplace and Yahoo.com Auction. The website was popularized entirely by word of mouth, and quickly became an internet meme. eBay's Latin American partner is MercadoLibre. Naked News was conceived in 1998 and debuted in 1999 as a web-based news service and featuring an all-female cast. eBay is also an easy place for unscrupulous sellers to market counterfeit merchandise, which can be difficult for novice buyers to distinguish without careful study of the auction description.

. In general, the company removes auctions that violate its terms of service agreement within a short time after hearing of the auction from an outsider; the company's policy is to not pre-approve transactions. Regardless of the gender of the anchor, the male demographic is particularly high for the show. On other occasions, people and even entire towns have been listed, often as a joke. Naked News TV is its offshoot pay-per-view or subscription service. In late 1999 a man offered one of his kidneys for auction on eBay, attempting to profit from the potentially lucrative (and, in the United States, illegal) market for transplantable human organs. The male and female anchors read the news fully nude or strip as they present their news segments. There has also been controversy regarding items put up for bid that violate ethical standards.

Naked News, billing itself as "the program with nothing to hide", is a subscription website featuring a real television newscast prepared in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Some exceptions to this rule are made for rare aged liquors, where a bottle may sell for many times higher than its actual value in alcohol. Radio Tango - Oslo, Norway radio station once featured stripping female weather readers on their website. In June 2004, eBay prohibited the sale and auction of both alcohol and tobacco products on the British site ebay.co.uk. Comedie - This program on a French cable TV network ran a series promos featuring males and females casually undressing as they read jokes. As of January 2006, there were over 25,000 members in the eBay Developers Program, comprising a broad range of companies creating software applications and services to support eBay buyers and sellers as well as eBay Affiliates. www.strip-news.de, a now-defunct German language webcast with both male and female announcers. Software developers can create applications that integrate with eBay through the eBay API by joining the eBay Developers Program.

Robert Milan. Regional searches of the database make shipping slightly more rapid or cheaper. Warren Michaels. Large international companies, such as IBM, sell their newest products and offer services on eBay using competitive auctions and fixed-priced storefronts. Brock Stern. It is fair to say that eBay has revolutionized the collectibles market by bringing together buyers and sellers internationally in a huge, never-ending yard sale and auction. Brendan Tanner. Services and intangibles can be sold too.

Joshua Holt - Recently announced he was gay in the pages of The Advocate magazine. Anything can be sold as long as it is not illegal or on the eBay banned list. Cole McQuade. Some items are rare and valuable, while many others are dusty gizmos that would have been discarded if not for the thousands of eager bidders worldwide, proving that if one has a big enough market, one will find someone willing to buy anything. Derek Shaw. Millions of collectibles, appliances, computers, furniture, equipment, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, and sold daily. Malcolm Matisse. Meg is credited with building the company to what it is today.

Jack Lange. She joined eBay when the company had 30 employees and operated solely in the United States; eBay is now a global organization with over 9,000 employees. Jeremy Chase. Margaret (Meg) Whitman joined the company in March 1998. Raoul Santos. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name EchoBay.com but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com. Lucas Tyler - The first male anchor of the show, now also producer and director, said to bear a strong resemblance to NBC newsman Matt Lauer. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm.

Sarah Winters. It officially changed its name to eBay in September 1997. Kelli Graham. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book and confirmed by eBay.). Kaye Grant. Astonished, he contacted the winning bidder and asked, "did he not understand the laser pointer was broken?" Omidyar received the following email in reply: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers." (The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancee trade PEZ Candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. Gretchen Frazier. The first item sold was Omidyar's broken laser pointer for $14.83.

Allyson Jones. Founded in San Jose, California on September 4, 1995 by Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll as Auctionweb, part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus. Erin Sherwood. . Devon Calwell - At age 19, she is the youngest cast member. eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) manages an online auction and shopping website, where people buy and sell goods and services worldwide. She is unrelated to the Italian model of the same name. Another concern with "fee avoidance" is that most sellers will not refund shipping so if a $1 item with a $50 shipping fee turns up faulty, the buyer is only eligible to a refund for the $1.

Carmen Russo - At age 42, she is the oldest cast member. This is called "fee avoidance" and is not allowed by eBay; such auctions are cancelled when they are reported. Holly Weston - She continued on the show throughout her pregnancy. Since eBay charges their fees based on final sales price and not shipping, this allows sellers to reduce the amount they pay eBay in fees and for buyers to avoid importing fees and taxes into their country. Brooke Roberts. Some users sell items for extremely low prices (usually using the Buy It Now feature) and then make up for it by overcharging on shipping. Diane Foster. Conversely, sometimes very cheap items, like envelopes, are sold for high prices because they come with free airline vouchers or concert tickets, in order not to violate the terms on these items.

Erica Stevens. This is not allowed by eBay. Samantha Page. Some users try to sell something which, on first glance, appears to be an expensive item for cheap (game console boxes are quite popular), and state clearly in the description that they are paying for an item which is not the one implied. Ashley Jenning. [21] Sabbouha is a verb to describe shill bidding which originated from an old Lebanese Legend. Yukiko Kimura. [20] Furthermore, shill bidding is a crime in many jurisdictions, and can be prosecuted under United States wire fraud laws.

Cameron Shore. (This is also known as "bid padding".) Shill bidding is not allowed on eBay. Gia Gomez. Shill bidding is the deliberate use of secondary registrations, aliases, family members, friends, or associates to artificially drive up the bid price of an item. Christine Kerr. [19]. Michelle Pantoliano - Former radio & TV broadcaster from New York City. eBay's "proxy bidding" feature allows the buyer to specify the maximum they are willing to pay for an item regardless of "snipes".

Lily Kwan. Many other auction sites, such as Yahoo! Auctions, offer an option which extends the auction by some minutes when a last-minute bid is placed, in order to prevent sniping. Sandrine Renard. This practice is allowed on eBay. Roxanne West. Bid sniping is placing a high bid during the last few seconds of an auction such that no time remains for other users to counterbid. "Athena the Greek". Human parts and remains [17].

Athena King - a.k.a. There was a demand for this kind of garment amongst sexual fetishists, and these garments would often fetch hundreds of dollars. April Torres. Sellers would post descriptions specifically emphasising that they had worn these undergarments for days, a week or more, especially during exercise. 2002. Dirty used clothing [16] This policy arose because a thriving market in used jock-straps and underwear had emerged on ebay. 2001, and returned in Nov. Firearms and ammunition [15].

Sinclair left the show in Sept. Bootleg recordings [14]. Victoria Sinclair - The first NN reporter, she originally performed solo before additional news anchors were added. Nazi paraphernalia [13]. Alcohol (alcohol-related collectibles, including sealed containers, as well as wine sales by licensed sellers are allowed) [12]. Tobacco (tobacco-related items and collectibles are allowed) [11].

[10]. a European buyer sold a Vauxhall VX220 that was said to have been baptized. [9]. The item failed to sell.

For $100, a man said that he would take a pair of jean his girlfriend made, and shoot them, and drag them behind his tractor, with a fee per shot/starting up the tractor. [8]. A Coventry University student got £1.20p for a single cornflake. [7].

The few tablespoons came from a plastic cup Presley sipped at a concert in North Carolina in 1977. Water that was said to have been left in a cup Elvis Presley once drank from was sold for $455. An incomplete package of diapers, bought and opened in the 1980s, raised more than $700US for the Children and Families Ministry at a United Church in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). The owner of Cockeyed.com sold advertising space comprising a single pixel on its homepage for 21 days for $100 [6].

A bargain considering he was one of the five best and most complete mammoth skeletons in the world, consisting of 90% of his original bone material. Max was put up for sale in 2004 by his Dutch owner due to lack of space and sold for £61,000. With a minimum bid set at US $250,000. A 50,000-year-old mammoth.

A Sydney man pocketed AUS$1,035 after auctioning a piece of Nutri-Grain resembling ET, in Dec 2004. She promptly sealed it in a plastic bag where it remained, free of mold, for over 10 years until its sale on eBay. The seller claimed to see the Virgin Mary toasted into the bread when she made the sandwich in 1994. On November 23, 2004, a grilled cheese sandwich with a likeness of the Virgin Mary on it sold for $28,000 to the online casino GoldenPalace.com.

[5]. The winning bid was $1691.66, and the winner rode in the front seat. There was at one point an auction for the first ride on Kingda Ka, the tallest roller coaster on Earth. [4].

In September 2004, the owner of MagicGoat.com sold the contents of his trash can to a middle school language arts teacher, who had her students write essays about the trash. While he initially admitted he was selling the dress to earn some money for Mariners tickets, the bidding got into the thousands of dollars, and the seller actually had received a number of marriage proposals from viewers. In more than one way, the seller received much more than he expected. In 2004, a Seattle man posted pictures of himself wearing his ex-wife's wedding dress.

[3]. The winning bid was made by the GoldenPalace.com online casino, known for their outrageous eBay purchases. In May 2005, a Volkswagen Golf that had previously been registered to Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (who had been elected Pope Benedict XVI the previous month) was sold on eBay's German site for €188,938.88. In June 2005, Karolyne Smith sold the right to permanently tattoo an ad on her forehead to GoldenPalace.com for $10,000.

[2]. In January 2006, the last 100 pixels of the milliondollarhomepage were sold for $38,100. That sold for approximately $100,000 and one of the contestant podiums sold for nearly $10,000 (proceeds of the set's sale went to charity). Actual portions of the 1996-2001 Jeopardy! set, including the 9-foot-high Jeopardy! logo that was etched in glass as the backdrop.

Round of golf with Tiger Woods ($425,000). Shoeless Joe Jackson's "Black Betsy" baseball bat ($577,610). Ferrari Enzo ($975,000, October 2004)[1]. Diamond Lake Resort, western Kentucky ($1.2 million).

1909 Honus Wagner baseball card ($1.65 million). Grumman Gulfstream II jet ($4.9 million). A 340-year-old copy of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre, which survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 (£5million). In 2005, the Australian NRL tried unsuccessfully to persuade eBay to prevent scalpers from selling grand final tickets online.

Normally, selling of charity tickets is legal under UK law. Following a statement from Bob Geldof that declared eBay a "cyber pimp", many of these auctions were bombarded with fake bids. On 14 June 2005 eBay removed auction listings for originally free tickets to the Live 8 charity auction amid hundreds of complaints about such auctions. eBay strongly supported Baazee.

The Indian government attempted to make the case that Bajaj broke a law under India's IT Act, that forbids "publishing, transmitting or causing to publish" obscene material, even though the actual material was never published on Baazee's servers. The company denied knowing the content of what they were selling (because it is a venue, not a retailer) and removed the offensive material as soon as they became aware of it. On 17 December 2004 Avnish Bajaj, CEO of eBay's Indian subsidiary Baazee.com, was arrested after a video clip showing oral sex between two Indian students was sold online. These offenses occurred prior to eBay's purchase of PayPal.

PayPal was also forced out of this market, which accounted for some 6% of its volume. According to the settlement, PayPal between mid-2000 and November 2002 transmitted money in violation of various US federal and state online gambling laws. On 28 July 2003 eBay and its subsidiary PayPal agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle allegations that they aided illegal offshore and online gambling. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case in 2006.

As of Nov 2005, eBay has appealed to the US Supreme Court to effectively block injunctive relief to patent holder MercExchange. The decision was appealed to the US Federal Court of Appeals and was upheld in part and rejected on others. The jury found for plaintiff MercExchange, which had accused eBay in 2001 of infringing on three patents (two of which are used in eBay's "Buy It Now" feature for fixed-price sales) held by MercExchange founder Tom Woolston. On 28 May 2003 a US District Court federal jury found eBay guilty of patent infringement and ordered the company to pay US$35 million in damages.

Returning items other than received. Receiving merchandise and claiming otherwise. Credit card fraud. Buyer than has free goods and has income equal to the amount he spent on the item.).

Filing a shipping claim for damaged merchandise and collecting the money from the shipping company, then filing a chargeback on paypal for damaged merchandise, then refusing to return goods. PayPal fraud (e.g. Inflating total bid amounts by bidding against their own auction with a "shill" account. Selling stolen goods.

Counterfeit merchandise. Shipping faulty merchandise. Shipping items other than those described. Receiving payment and not shipping merchandise.

A user may be reluctant to leaving honest feedback out of fear of negative retaliatory feedback (including negative in retaliation for neutral). Small and large transactions carry the same weight in the feedback summary. In August 2005, eBay bought Skype, a VoIP company, for $2.6 billion in stock and cash. In June 2005, eBay acquired Shopping.com, a online comparison site for $635 Million USD.

In May 2005, eBay acquired Gumtree, a network of UK local city classifieds sites. On December 16, 2004, eBay acquired rent.com for $30 million in cash and $385 million in ebay stock. This was a Dutch competitor which had a 80% market share in the Netherlands, by concentrating more on small ads than actual auctions. In November 2004, eBay acquired Marktplaats.nl for €225 million.

(IAC), buying nearly 3 million shares of the Korean online trading company for 125,000 Korean won (about US$109) per share. In September 2004, eBay moved forward on its acquisition of Korean rival Internet Auction Co. On August 13, 2004, eBay took a 25% stake in craigslist.org by buying out an existing shareholder who was once a craigslist employee. On June 22, 2004, eBay acquired all outstanding shares of Baazee.com, an Indian auction site for approximately US $50 million in cash, plus acquisition costs.

acquired EachNet, a leading ecommerce company in China, paying approximately $150 million in cash. On July 11, 2003 eBay Inc. In July, 2002, eBay acquired PayPal, for $1.5 billion in stock. In August, 2001, eBay acquired Mercado Libre, Lokau and iBazar, Latin Americas auction sites.

In June, 2000, eBay acquired Half.com, which was later integrated with the eBay Marketplace. In 1999, eBay acquired the auction house Alando for $43 million, which changed then to eBay Germany. In 1999, eBay acquired the auction house Butterfield & Butterfield, which it sold in 2002 to Bonhams. In May, 1999, eBay acquired the online payment service Billpoint, which it shut down after acquiring Paypal.