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

Online harrassment crosses the line

Usability expert Kathy Sierra has been victimized by some terrible online harrassment as of late.  Her latest post details what she's gone through. I belie…

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Luxuriating in one's own vehemence

George Will in Sunday's Washington Post : "Many people who loathe George W Bush have adopted what Peter Wood describes as "ecstatic anger as a mod…

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A Unitarian in Congress

I suppose that it's a breakthrough, of sorts, that Representative Pete Stark (D-Calif., from Berkeley, of course) is the "first Congress member in hist…

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Ensuring trust online

My good friend Sanjana sent me a link to a very well put together article on online trust by Mark McElhaw. An excerpt... "To ensure site visitors continue…

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History is patient, and it is relentless

Eugene Robinson, also in the Post today: "Did George W. Bush and his Cabinet lead the nation into war on false pretenses? Specifically, did Bush and the ot…

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Hyperpartisanship

E.J. Dionne in today's Post : "Hand-wringing over extreme partisanship has become a popular cause among learned analysts. They operate from Olympian he…

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Their values, not ours

Rory Stewart in today's Times:  "...I find that donor proposals encourage us to emphasize the negative aspects of local society. Many of our criticisms…

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Featured blog on Mediate.com

Hey, I just got chosen to be one of the featured blogs at Mediate.com. Cool! Check it out.  There's some great mediation blogs linked from there, including…