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

A procedural knife fight

Carl Hulse in today's New York Times: "...the clash between the two veteran senators is evidence of a larger breakdown in relations in the Senate, a de…

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A DOJ attorney speaks out

Wow, this is pretty forceful stuff.  Feels to me like we're at something of a breaking point if internal voices (such as those inside DOJ) are willing to sp…

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Questioning Integration

David Brooks in the 6/6 New York Times: "Nothing is sadder than the waning dream of integration. This dream has illuminated American life for the past seve…

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The Whole World Is Watching

Thomas Friedman in today's NYT, writing about Dov Seidman's new book called How: '...in this transparent world “how” you live your life and “how” yo…

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Mental landscapes

My good friend John Helie emailed me today about the Microsoft Photosynth project and its potential to flesh out the next generation of the net.  John has been…

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Race to the bottom

Kristof in the Times: '“We see war coming,” Mr. Nkunda said, and he pulled out his laptop to show a map indicating that various government-backed forces are…

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The Assault on Reason

From Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason: "Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the powe…

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(Rejecting) The Human Community

Brooks in the 5/11 NYT : "In April 1999, Blair delivered a speech in Chicago in which he ran down all the features of the globalized world that cross borde…

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Sunshine for the Virtual Town Hall

Tom Grubisich, in the May 14th Washington Post: "These days we want "transparency" in all institutions, even private ones. There's one massiv…