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

cyberbullying

Jan Hoffman in the NYT today: "The seventh-grade guidance counselor says she can spend up to three-fourths of her time mediating conflicts that began onli…

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They've got to want it

Friedman in the NYT today: "Why do we have to recruit and train our allies, the Afghan Army, to fight? That is like someone coming to you with a plan to re…

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Abusive Customers

Jamie Smarr on the NYT City Room blog: "Let’s face it, folks. The customer is not always right. In fact, some are just plain old abusive, cheap and crass.…

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Dispute Resolution iPhone App

Mike Sherry in the Kansas City Business Journal, "In a marital spat? There’s an app for that..." "In a knock-down-drag-out fight with your signi…

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ODR and Consumers 2010

Sporadic updates on this blog as of late, but that's due to some exciting developments in other places... Check out the cooperative blog on the UNCITRAL OD…

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Face for Radio

Check out my latest eBay adventure... filling in for Griff as the host of eBay Radio: http://www.ebroadcaststudios.com/jun8,2010.html Pretty rough, but it'…

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Addicted to conflict

"There's plenty of evidence to support that we don't need to fight... it's almost like we're addicted to the fight... the media is very con…

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Backstage drama at Wikipedia DE

This is a fascinating case study of an in depth online dispute involving a very tech savvy and high profile team. Mathieu von Rohr in Speigel Online: "It…

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The price we pay for civilization

James Carroll in the Globe: "We may dislike the tax bite, but we loathe the destruction of civic pillars and the deliberate unraveling of safety nets. Citi…

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Obama and Rush

CBS News: "In an interview with CBS News' Harry Smith yesterday, President Obama was asked if he is "aware of the level of enmity that crosses the…

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Health Care

Well, I have little to add to the nattering nabobs out there, but I'm pleased we passed it. As to the post-script, I'm with E.J. : "By temperament…