eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman last week outlined eBay's current three-prong approach for battling the phishers and scammers who continually prey on unsuspecting eBay users. Red Herring reported that this past Thursday at the VISA Security Summit in Washington, DC, Ms. Whitman made it known that in the continuing effort to restore basic user security to their site would remain proactive and reactive. What I found to be a startling contrast to former eBay attitude on the subject was Ms. Whitman's admission that in this continuing effort eBay could not go it alone, as evidenced by her request for involvement in the anti-fraud efforts by the filtering of e-mail by ISPs, something which is unlikely to happen.

The three-prong approach that eBay is implementing is focused on protecting eBay users from unwittingly divulging important personal and financial information to people who have no business obtaining such data. The plan involves a key fob that accesses randomly generated passwords, the blacklisting of known fraudulent websites, and a request that ISPs only forward e-mail from recognized domains. On their face the conjoined ideas sound legitimate but analysts remain highly skeptical as to their usefulness effectiveness and implementation.

Losses from e-mail phishing and other data diversion tactics topped $2.8 billion for 2006. Reports say that the three major targets are PayPal, eBay, and commercial banks. Gartner analyst Avivah Litan said that eBay is "at the center of this hurricane for fraudsters." While eBay is certainly not at fault for the continuing onslaught upon their membership, this writer maintains that it needs to be far more transparent about its problems, far more helpful to its members, and far more aggressive in the successful prosecution of the individuals who continue to pillage eBay membership.

Key fobs are for keys. Prisons are for scammers. Let's get with it eBay.