There are quite a few sites that we just know that are scams. Most of us already had problems online, so the question here is, who can we resort to complain about internet issues? Isn't it about time that an internet authority is created to ban criminals and dubious activities from the net? Could this happen soon?
We will see that in the future in some form, I'm sure. Anyone that is going to fall for some cheap scam, should be allowed to. Quit focusing on making pennies with micro jobs and focus on something bigger. Then, you will not be scammed. Everything is do so at your own risk. You cant stop people from getting scammed. In order for someone to become a scammer, they first need to actually scam someone. So people are getting scammed either way. There are websites with "trust worthy ratings" and that sort of stuff.
This could only work if there were international laws enforced by all countries. But considering the fact that it's impossible to get all countries to agree on legislating such a law I guess that scammers will still be able to operate rather freely on the net as long as the country they live does not bother to stop them [if they know what is going on]. For other more serious issues like child porn I think it's possible for governments to work together to stop it.
One day the internet will be controlled and spammers wont last long. Id prefer things to stay the way that they are. The less control the better. I prefer freedom. Things can change fast when you take freedom away.
You are talking about creating a worldwide police force that would be able to enforce laws and make arrests in every country. I don't expect to see anything like that soon. In Canada, the UK, and the US, (and often other places) our police forces often team up arrest those scamming or distributing child porn. We need to take care of ourselves first. While anyone could fall for a good scam, being vigilant will at least reduce the chances. Sites like EBay need to be held legally accountable for scammers using their services. It is not enough to say they were not a party to the transaction when they facilitated it and these scams occur daily. I would like to see a centralized "report a scam" agency that could investigate and act. I would also like to see the creators of malware and viruses jailed for a long time to make up for the costs and lost time everyone goes through when infected.
Well that would be a tough task to materialize, because it would require a worldwide concentrated effort. So I guess for now we are only stuck with getting Paypal disputes, but I think if the scammer is residing in the same country as the complainant, then there is more hope for justice being served.
The government in my country is already enforcing this law actually and every other day they will report an illegal site they found to Internet users. They already brought few people into the court and two of them were a couple who blogged about their porn activities. The couple were a student of a University and both were under a scholarship. After the court, their scholarship were taken away and both were banned from the University. Our authority is also going after some online sellers who were reported to be scamming people at the moment, they already have these people's real names, home addresses, and also ID numbers so sure they will be found soon.
I don't think there is a police you can report to, nor am I sure if I'd really like such a thing. I think the best thing you could do is to post comments on different scam watch sites and to spread the word as much as you can so other people would stop falling for it, but I understand the feeling of helplessness as even this wouldn't be enough to deter the masses and therefore shut the scam site down. If you joined a local site, then I'm fairly sure you can take action in your own country, but as for internationally based companies, I don't think it's worth it to go after them. The best thing to do is to remain skeptical and vigilant, because freedom comes with a price and unfortunately some people don't realize it.
I understand that is hard to create something like this because countries have their autonomy, but on the other hand the internet is a virtual world. I think the key here is locating the people that suffered from the internet scams, but how hard will be proving that?
Not only scams is the only issue encountered today by the people that needs to be addressed. There's also this cyber-bullying. But back to the topic, I'm sorry but I believe in Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware. I know that you have good intentions but the government rather put their budget in fixing problems other than this. Just be really careful.
I don't think an internet police is something that can be implemented, simply because they would have to be based somewhere and the internet is everywhere. We already see this nowadays with websites changing their server locations to escape the laws of each country. What authority would the internet police based in the USA have to arrest people with a server with Sweden for example?
The internet means freedom. We don't need something such as a internet police. What are we going to do with our youngsters? How and why will you teach them to respect some rules when they only want to play online games?
I think that something as cyber-police would be a good idea, but only in some areas. They should be looking for e-frauds, and also there should be some place where you can file a report on a website/forum/internet user.
eBay already has measures in place to prevent scams. It is very easy to open a case against a seller for an item not received and cause that person's Paypal funds to be frozen and their selling privileges taken away. If anything, buyers have more rights than sellers on ebay, since sellers can't leave bad feedback for dishonest or nonpaying buyers.
What are you going on about? Your comment has nothing to do with the topic. It's not good to just post based on the thread title alone. The topic is whether there should be internet law enforcement to protect honest people from being scammed by phony work opportunities or investment sites that go out of business overnight and keep people's money. Nobody said anything about youngsters or internet games, or freedom. This is about punishing what amounts to theft of people's time and money. I think that internet crime is too freaking rampant and is growing out of control unchecked, but since the internet is worldwide, I think only local police can shut down local websites according to their country's laws. For example the FBI shuts down websites that violate US laws.
I honestly do not think that police can deal with the situations. Everybody is aware that there are plenty if scams going on. It is your job to do the research to figure out if what ever you are planning on signing up for is a scam or not before you sign up.
Even if there was a way to police the net, scammers will always find loopholes and exploit them. For example, while it's possible to combat and defeat identity theft, there's no way you can stop someone sending money to a scammer if they are convinced the scammer is selling a legit service or great product. The only way to kill spam is for the ISPs to educate their customers about scammers and other bad people they'll meet on the net.
Scams are definitely a big issues, but a policing of the net would ultimately be abused and legitimate use would be hindered. It would be all too easy for an internet police to hinder freedom of speech online. It happens in some countries already where the web is filtered somehow and certain sites can't be accessed. People who write things the government doesn't like find their pages shut down or worse. We don't want to invite that kind of thing, it may one day happen anyway, but lets not encourage it.
Yeah, that is the main issue for me. This would mean that an internet Interpol would have to exist and to be honest I am not sure that the big countries want the internet to be regulated because I suspect that is a lot that we don't know that happens in the world wide web...
What do you mean? Do you mean the governments themselves wouldn't want it? I completely agree that the people wouldn't want it policed, but it would be better for the governments, right?
