eBay UK has cancelled plans to test a new program called Community Court, a system for dealing with unfair feedback. Users first heard of the new system in October in the eBay Business Newsletter that eBay UK sends to PowerSellers. Community Court was designed so that eBay members in the UK who received negative feedback ratings from trading partners could let a jury of other eBay members decide if the feedback was fair or not. If 70 of the 100 jurors felt the negative feedback was unfair, eBay would have removed the feedback. A "hung jury" would have resulted in no action.
The page describing the Community Court program was replaced with a message saying the company had decided to postpone the program indefinitely. "We had expected to launch Community Court in late 2007 and allow members to open their first cases. Community Court has generated a lot of interest and enthusiasm globally, and we were really excited at the prospect of getting it up and running. Unfortunately, we've had to make some tough choices to ensure that we can focus on initiatives that will have the most impact in 2008."
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/confidence/community-court-hold.html