“Biblio.com would like to thank everyone for the ongoing patience and outpouring of support during this difficult period. It is only with the goodwill of our booksellers that we have been able to achieve our recovery.

Although we had hoped and expected to have Biblio restored earlier, the site is now live again. Our entire staff has worked ceaselessly to complete repairs on the database, and retrieve all of the data.

To enable the site to return as quickly as possible, we have identified the most important functions for Biblio.com Bookseller Members and customers to be able to access. Customers are able to search for, and purchase Biblio.com inventory once again. Later this afternoon, Biblio.com will begin processing uploads received in the last 48 hours to remove inventory delete requests, and we should begin reprocessing those uploads soon for adds and updates. Booksellers should not need to resend any ftp uploads that have been previously sent during our down time.

All inventory, order information, and customer payment information has been restored from our backups, and is available. While Biblio continues with ongoing repairs, some limitations of the system will be likely. Search times may be longer while system resources are being used for the continued restoration. Although booksellers will be able to access all of their listings, and remove sold books, they will not be immediately able to add or edit inventory, and listings will not be browseable. Sellers will not be able to upload images or manage catalogs, and listings will not show-up on Bookfinder or Addall.

At the current rate of recovery, our engineers have given an estimate for full recovery of October 4th. Booksellers’ listings may not be browseable again for a slightly longer period.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of both our booksellers for their patience, and the entire Biblio.com staff, who have worked around the clock since this problem began.

Although I had hoped to recover much sooner, our staff has overcome tremendous difficulty to expedite repair. We have been forced to test our abilities, and the staff of Biblio has demonstrated greater dedication than I could have ever hoped. We have been given the opportunity to learn from this experience. Booksellers and customers should see the benefit of improved performance as a result our system rebuild.

In the next few days, sellers should see Biblio continue to return to normal as all of the bookseller and customer options become available again. Bookseller payments will be sent out on schedule on Monday, October 2nd when Biblio runs first of the month billing.

Kind regards,
Brendan Sherar
CEO, Biblio Inc.”

Paypal agreed to improve many of its customer notification and awareness practices as it settled a suit with 28 states in the US. In the settlement Paypal did not admit wrongdoing, agreed to $3.5 million settlement fund, and “make several changes to its online payment service, including clearly and conspicuously disclosing all contractual terms and financial obligations. [In addition], when PayPal members prepare to make a purchase, they will be presented with a clear choice whether to pay by credit card, debit card or electronic funds transfer.” According to one Attorney General, “Under this agreement, consumers will no longer have to click through multiple hyperlinks to get critical information about their financial transactions.” (See SPI, AP, Reuters).

With the hopes of simulating the success of MySpace, eBay is launching the MyWorld platform.  According to the site, ” Think of My World as your place to show the rest of the eBay Community who you are on eBay.”  Check out the eBay Introducing MyWorld webpage.