Colin Rule started his first online courtroom in 2003, when he was working for eBay and PayPal. The tool became incredibly popular and now totals over 60 million disputes yearly. Most of these disputes are low value, and 90% of them are handled without the involvement of a human.
Now Rule has left the eCommerce giants and has vowed to make this service go global. That’s why he started out Modria – the Modular Online Dispute Implementation Assistant – to bring Internet justice beyond eBay and PayPal. “There are millions of times where people are wronged on the Internet, but they don’t have access to the court system,” he told Fast Company. “What Modria is trying to do is provide low-cost resolution processes that can provide fair outcomes in cases.”
The system works very similarly to PayPal’s resolution dispute center. The system is prepared with common problems and solutions, which allows the plaintiff to make a resolution proposal via a drop-down menu. The proposal is sent to the other party, who can accept or make another proposal. The process continues until both sides have reached an agreement.
For more complex cases, Modria provides a true mediation service, like a mediation court would. The process works by having each side upload its evidence to the Modria platform and having a mediator look at both sides’ arguments and conduct a discussion in a shared chat-room. The dispute can also be sent to a jury – other users are sent the case and vote on the outcome.
The process follows the exact same rules as a real mediation and arbitration process. “What this is about, fundamentally, is the courts can’t handle Internet disputes – there are too many of them, they’re too low value, Rule says.
While companies like eBay, PayPal and Amazon have their own dispute resolution centres, Rule wants go beyond particular retailers and offer a service just like normal courts would, open to every retailer. “In the real world, we don’t have Walmart court and Sears court, there’s just one court.”
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