Monday, March 10, 2008

Your reputation precedes you: Did it precede eBay?

Well, I am looking for an apartment-mate for the downstairs share in my duplex. I have met some interesting people through the Craigslist ad that I posted (I am tempted to link to it here but won't).

Some folks offered their Myspace (party people) and Facebook (more conservative) profiles in their e-mail exchanges with me. I did some Googling and found an amusing profile for someone who hasn't updated their Friendster profile in quite some time.

But there were also some folks that didn't have any traceability or reputation online and they weren't (or so they claim) tech savvy or web surfer types.

This had me thinking once again about eBay's recent feedback "changes." Why has eBay so radically changed their feedback policy? If Paypal isn't eBay's most valuable asset then i'm sure that their feedback reputation system system is.

I was curious if i could find prior art in the patent database and did find some interesting patents.

Is it possible they might have another MercExchange (Buy It Now Patent) on their hands?

Although *I* couldn't find a patent proving prior art, perhaps there is a patent attorney out there who can (or who has):

Dun & Bradstreet
http://tinyurl.com/32envz

http://tinyurl.com/37hggw

http://tinyurl.com/3dydfe

http://www.openratings.com

Microsoft
http://tinyurl.com/ystwm7

Intel (objective unlike eBay which is subjective)
http://tinyurl.com/2q4h42

Are there any other interesting "reputation" patents out there?????