That action was reported in a page 1 story in Linn's issue of Dec. 18, 2000. Yahoo subsequently excluded stamps and coins from its list of prohibited objects. The new eBay policy that is scheduled to go in effect May 17 goes beyond Yahoo's policies. It will ban such things as Charles Manson T-shirts, which have long been sold on street corners in Berkeley, Calif., and elsewhere, because they supposedly glorify the man convicted of ordering the murder of actress Sharon Tate in 1969. EBay's stamp chat board, where the latest issues are sometimes discussed heatedly, echoed collectors' concerns about the future.
History is history.
Some eBay veterans observed that the policies of the large online auction houses are politically expedient but unsupported by software that can make them work. After awhile, those looking for such 'banned' items will look for the 'code' words, and not the current usages, thus obviating eBay's 'red message' AND getting items exposed and sold. Collectors and dealers who buy stamps on the Internet often believe they are part of a global trading community that is virtually immune from regulation. The controversies that have led to the new policies by the Internet auction houses demonstrate that national interests still exist, even if their origins are not always so well understood by the policy makers in Silicon Valley. Fifty years ago, Linn's reported the Allied failure to suppress an element of stamp collecting in Germany.