Item for sale: My soul.
Current Price: £0.99
Picture: Not Available.
Condition: Used.
Description: Aged 21 and female.

Has the world gone mad? Perusing the internet one could conclude that people will do anything to get their hands on a little cash. It’s easy, but how ethical is buying and selling on the internet?

The internet is a place where we can purchase cars without test driving them, become the proud owner of a piece of Scottish land, acquire the skeleton of a 50,000 year-old mammoth, or even buy a student’s virginity.Where is the origin of this lunacy? It’s the biggest online auction website, eBay.

In October 1999, eBay was launched in the UK. It became the UK's largest online market place and is currently Britain's number one e-commerce site, the number of eBay.co.uk's visitors reached 8.8m in November 2004. On any given day, there are millions of items for sale on the site across thousands of diverse categories, and at any given time there are more than 34 million items on the site worldwide, with more than 3.5 million new items added each day.

eBay is not a selective marketplace. Anything can be sold online, from the bizarre to the sublime. Other items in the past included a drill used in the building of the Channel Tunnel, sold for £39,999. One of Margaret Thatcher’s handbags went for a final bid of £103,000 and Christina Aguilera's bathwater and thong fetched £810. The most expensive item sold on the site to date is a Gulfstream jet for £2.6 million.
It’s entertaining and a bit of fun, until ethical concerns arise the shopping stops.

Bristol University student Rosie Reid, 18, auctioned her virginity on eBay last year. She received 400 bids and accepted one of £8,400. The London born lesbian claimed she was selling her body to pay for 'excessive tuition fees'.
It’s all very well to pick up concert tickets, vintage computer games or other items that take your fancy. The list of items forbidden on eBay includes: alcohol, credit cards, drugs, firearms, lottery tickets, surveillance equipment and satellite TV descramblers. Body parts not included.

One vendor offered the meaning of life. His description explained: "I have discovered the reason for our existence and will be happy to share this information with the highest bidder". This sense of humor reflects the general consensus amongst eBay buyers and sellers. In the cynical world we live in, eBay despite ethical debate, is a shining light.
eBay members are encouraged to create communities using the wide variety of discussion and help boards available to them online. This is where the auction room differs from other moneymaking ventures and becomes a passionate community of individuals and small businesses.
The trust involved between vendors and buyers is unbelieveable. Where else would you pay for a product that you’d never seen or touched? The eBay community is self-policing, and users frequently form "neighborhood watch" groups to guard against violations of site etiquette.

eBay becomes a lifestyle. Not only has eBay created a virtual community, it also provides opportunities for many of its members to start second businesses, or leave day jobs altogether, to sell items online.

I toyed with the idea of putting my soul up for sale and seeing how it faired. However, I was beaten to it; a man once sold his own soul for £11.61 He promised to send the buyer an ownership document.
Undeterred by the competition, I wrote to eBay’s customer support to ensure that selling ones soul is a viable concept. However, the reply I received, although polite, was surprising.

It read: “Thank you for taking the time to write to eBay. However, auction listings that do not offer an actual item for sale are not allowed. Thank you for being part of the eBay community and best wishes.”
Having dealt with the disappointment that my Faustian designs would never transpire I began to question my existence.

In eBay’s eyes my soul is not an item, do I therefore not exist?

Sara Morris

© Substance Magazine 2005
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