WTI succeeds in making Bazee.com change its policy on sale of animal parts

Last week, WTI's undercover agent bid for a tiger skin on Bazee.com, which was up for auction at $1 million. Posing as Andrew Jhonson, of New York, WTI's undercover agent bid for the skin and won the bid. WTI had pointed out this sale to ministry officials, to verify the validity and authenticity of the certificate in the owner's possession.

The minister of state for empowerment, implementation and animal welfare, Ms Maneka Gandhi, on reading the news item on this website, promptly asked Bazee.com to take the item off their website.

Bazee.com's Avinash Bajaj responded by deleting the offending auction and blacklisting the seller. It has also sent him a warning notice. Mr. Bajaj said in a letter to Ms Gandhi that company was searching its database for all possible illegal auctions related to animals and would deleted them.

The company has said that it will also meet with the Cyber Crime cell of Mumbai Police to see if they can help with action against such offenders.

Moreover, the company is also modifying its terms and conditions to exclude animal skins trading explicitly, although they had covered it under an existing clause. Mr. Bajaj said the company's `Terms of Use' (which are agreed upon by anyone using the site), explicitly prohibits anyone from trading in any item that is illegal. Adding that while animal skins are not called out per se, they are classified as illegal and therefore are covered by this clause.

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