YOU CAN'T STOP COMMERCE

Of course, it's one thing to say you'll stop Live 8 tickets being flogged on your auction site, but quite another to actually carry out that promise. It turns out that Ebay doesn't have a setting on its database software which can be chosen with a radio button to 'don't let anyone sell their Live 8 tickets', and so as fast as they take down the sales, more Live 8 tickets spring up.

Of course, it could just be that the people who love Bob are doing his bidding: he asked people to bring down Ebay, and what better way than to deliberately do the opposite of what Ebay have asked? So, Ebay say please don't post tickets:

"Once we are aware of any Live 8 tickets being offered for sale, these listings will promptly be taken down.

"However, Live 8 listings may be up on the site for a short time before being taken down since, as eBay is a marketplace, it is not possible to block or check listings before they appear.

"In the meantime, we would like to ask the public to stop listing Live 8 tickets. We are also asking our community of buyers and sellers to let us know if they see any Live 8 tickets on the site so we can quickly take them down."

... and everyone, primed to do the exact opposite, rushes to their computers to try and sell their tix. Everyone gets caught in a permanent loop, listing, delisting, listing, delisting, until all the microprocesser power available is either being spent on putting up Live 8 tickets, or taking them down again. Fiendish.

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