A Kidney a Day Keeps the Doctors on eBay

The problem with running an auction site where anybody can put anything up for sale is that sooner or later they will. So it was that eBay officials found themselves Thursday confronting a particularly cringe-inducing entry: item #153213066, billed as a "Fully functional kidney for sale." "You can choose either kidney," the description read. "Buyer pays all transplant and medical costs. Of course, only one for sale, as I need the other one to live. Serious bids only." The listing had been up since August 26 and the bidding had been intense, running from $25,000 up to $5.7 million in just six days. EBay took down the listing, but then the copycats got to work: Within hours, four similar listings popped up - and were just as quickly taken down.

But was the guy serious? It's still not known, though eBay wasn't sitting around waiting to find out. Such offers are against their rules — not to mention a federal law, designed to prevent the exploitation of poor people, which makes selling your organs a felony punishable by up to five years in prison or a $50,000 fine. EBay says it has no system for filtering what people put up, and acts only after members alert them to a problem (the company banned firearms this spring after a public outcry). With close to 6 million users posting to the site, the company says there's no way to stay on top of every listing, and if the company tried, it could be liable for anything that got through. Like a lot of things on the Internet, it's an evolving process that's sure to provide many more situations of a similar stripe.