"bad mouthing buyers or sellers"... "deceptive sales environment"... "establishing fake verified-status identities"...

So how is this different from what happens on the internet all the time, right now?

A market is a market any fiddling tools are going to end up in the hands of the criminals and governments these boffins need to be held responsible for any damage done legitimate commerce by their tools possibly jail time when the inevitable happens.

These guys are amateurs.

It is only a matter of time until someone co-ops these tools and uses them to disrupt "legitimate" markets, ebay, etc.

Those techniques could be viewed as breaking the 2006 Fraud act. So employing them here could result in jail time.

How about instead of 5,000-20,000 lawsuits against people trading mp3's we have that many investigations into those trading stolen credit cards.

I just find it strange that is more dangerous to trade in mp3's than in stolen credit card numbers.

Its obvious. when you download an mp3 you are "stealing" from a business. when you steal a credit card number you are only stealing from another peon. anyone can steal from the masses and nobody cares, just ask benny hin. just dont steal from the ruling class.

Not strange at all. At most a credit card number is worth say AUS$5,000 which is an average credit limit. More likely you'd get $1000 then the banks start noticing and phone you (mine does anyway).

One single MP3, according to the RIA Ass. is worth $4.7bajillion (with Dr.Evil finger in mouth) or seems to be the way they sue...

It's more dangerous to trade .mp3s because that is "hurts" large businesses. Hence the tough penalties and strongarm tactics. Dealing in credit card numbers and identity theft only hurts the "little peons", and so warrants little to no attention from governments or law enforcement.

Sorry, I'm just in a bitter mood....

... I've often thought of writing a little app which logs onto a phishing site, and creates hundreds of thousands of logins.

I'm sure the bad guys would give up after the 10,000th failed login.

There is a similar app. The Refi Retaliator II - Fake Bank Form Filler fills the application forms on phishing sites with fake data, poisoning the phisher's victim database with hundreds of nonexistent people. It doesn't always work properly, though, as the phishers have to keep changing their forms to counter it.