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To:  eBay

Re: Proposal to add "gifting/charity" feature at eBay.com

Supplemental:
- Translate this petition into German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese
- A short version of this proposal is presented in the form of a poll

To whom it may concern at eBay,

PRAISE
Your success story at eBay, creating the largest cyber marketplace for private buyers and sellers, has yet another chapter that we the undersigned would like to encourage you to add to your service.

PRINCIPLE
It is based on the famous verses that read, "And they had all things in common," "and there were no poor among them."

QUESTION
Will eBay play a role in facilitating a modern fulfillment of this long-held gospel dream?

TECHNOLOGY IN PLACE
You have the technology and infrastructure already in place to serve as a premier facilitator of such a dream come true in large measure. All that is lacking with your current set-up could be easily remedied with a little code modification to enable people to post items they wish to give away to those who need them.

ISSUES
Yes, there would be some issues to work through, such as how to design and present the service so that the greedy don't gobble up what is intended for the needy. Certainly you would not want to repeat the endless bureaucracy found in government programs in the process of determining eligibility for aid.

NEED
We are confident that there are a good many charity-minded individuals and organizations whose free exchanges one with another, and even with those outside their immediate circles of belief or society, could be augmented tremendously through capabilities such as you have refined at eBay for monetary-based exchanges.

DIFFERENCE
The main difference would be the omission of a monetary exchange. Also, in place of a bidding process, there could be a statement of need for the item that would be submitted to the person posting the item for consideration. But even more than need, geographical nearness could be weighed into the decision.

EMPHASIS ON LOCAL
The ideal situation would be that most exchanges would take place on as local a level as possible, and it would only be after the local level had not posted a claim for the item that it would be bumped up to a more broad geographical region and so forth.

TARGETING CAPABILITY
At the same time, people or organizations posting an item would have an override option that would enable them to specify a particular region of the world where they wanted their item to be received.

DISTRIBUTION TO NON-INTERNET USERS
Ministries already established for the care of the needy could serve as distribution points for those individuals who do not have Internet access.

MONETARY DONATIONS FACILITATION
The eBayGift service could also be used to facilitate people donating funds to their favorite charities, ministries or organizations. eBay could actually serve as the credit card merchant, receiving a nominal cut from the donations to defray the cost of providing this service. There are many small worth-while ministries who do not have the budget nor the know-how to set up their own merchant accounts. This alone could be a great service.

SELF-MONITORING
The feedback feature currently in place for money-based exchanges could be extended to provide a self-regulating indication of a person or organization's credibility in charitable distributions and use.

WAITING LIST FOR NEEDS
People with needs could post those on a waiting list if nothing is currently listed. The default would be for the most local matches between needs and new donations to be filled first. But this default could be overridden in the case of a ministry or charity that has posted a need that a person wishes to specifically fill, independent of vicinity.

SIMPLICITY AND TRUST
Obviously, the variables and possibilities are endless as to how this could be configured. As is the case with your current set-up, simplicity and a trust in the basic goodness of the people participating would be the primary driving factors in determining the best way to present this service as a new feature at eBay.

WHY eBAY?
Perhaps you are asking yourself why someone would want to use this avenue for gifting their excess items or funds, when they could just as easily stop them off at the local charity, or send them to their favorite ministry. Perhaps the answer to this question is the same as the one for the question as to why someone would want to buy something on the Internet when they could just go down to the local store and purchase the same item.

BENEFIT
eBay would benefit from this gifting arrangement, both from the increased number of users and user sessions as well as from eBay's increased moral stature for participating in this humanitarian effort. But most importantly, many people's quality of life could be improved as excess items that abound in our society could be voluntarily distributed more readily to where they could be put to good use.

THANKS
Thank you for considering this proposal. We hope our encouragement will be helpful.

{Note to participants: After you click to sign this petition, you will be e-mailed a confirmation along with suggested wording to tell your friends about this petition. We thank you in advance for passing this on to your friends so that more people can express their support so that this proposal can become a reality. Thanks for helping in yet one more way to utilize modern inspired technologies for the furthering of the kingdom of God on earth. It is refreshing when these tools can be used for such good.}

Copyright © 2000 PatriotSaints {click for short eBay poll}

Sincerely,

The Add 'Gifting/Charity' Feature at eBay.com Petition to eBay was created by Patriot Saints for the Kingdom of God on Earth and written by .  The petition is hosted at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no express or implied endorsement of this petition by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. The petition scripts are created by at Artifice, Inc.  Technical questions can be addressed to