Stanford CIS

Colin Rule

Non-Residential Fellow

Colin Rule has worked at the intersection of technology and conflict resolution for the last two decades. He is CEO of Modria.com, an online dispute resolution service provider in Silicon Valley, and Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution at UMass-Amherst. From 2003 to 2011 he served as eBay and PayPal's first director of Online Dispute Resolution, designing and implementing systems that now resolve more than 60 million disputes each year.

Mr. Rule is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, published by Jossey-Bass in September 2002. He has presented and trained around the world for organizations including the U.S. Department of State, UNCITRAL, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution, as well as teaching at UMass-Amherst, Stanford, Southern Methodist University, and Hastings College of the Law. He has written and been interviewed extensively about the Internet since 1999, with columns and articles appearing in ACResolution, Consensus, Dispute Resolution Magazine, and Peace Review. He holds a master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in conflict resolution and technology, a B.A. in peace studies from Haverford College, and he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea from 1995-1997.

Recent articles

Blog

Why I'm glad I don't live in Gapun

Damian Whitworth in today's Times of London: "Human beings argue about everything from adultery to Zionism and we do so in different styles, whether we…

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The Modern Rabbit Hole

Virginia Heffernan in the NYT Magazine over the weekend: "Movies and music engage and enlighten me, but they don’t steal my mind... For that I increasingly…

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Dignity, not democracy

David Ignatius in today's Post:  "We talk about democracy and human rights. Iraqis talk about justice and honor." That comment from Lt. Col. David…

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Misinterpreting email communications

Daniel Goleman in the 10/7 NYT: "We were having an e-mail exchange about some crucial detail involving publishing rights, which I thought was being worked…

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Disputes growing in virtual worlds

The Business Shrink, October 10th, 2007:  "With virtual world’s forming into the next big thing on the horizon, the real world is starting to play catch up…

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Morality and political alignment

Nicholas Wade in the September 18 New York Times: "Working with a graduate student, Jesse Graham, Dr. Haidt has detected a striking political dimension to…

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The hatred is back

Richard Cohen is getting hammered out there on the blogs, mostly in response to a column he wrote chastising Hillary Clinton for not speaking out about the Move…

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The origins of mistrust

Damien Cave in today's New York Times: "Shatha al-Musawi, a Shiite member of Parliament, first encountered the Sunni-Shiite divide on the day the Ameri…