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

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Building Agreement Through Aggression

From CNN.com, "Ex-Iranian leader blames Bush policies for terrorism," posted 2:24 p.m. EDT, September 4, 2006: '...former Iranian President Moham…

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How can you live in the northeast?

Great song by Paul Simon on his latest album, Surprise: "We heard the fireworks. Rushed out to watch the sky. Happy go lucky. Fourth of July. How can you…

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August Vacation / SMU course

Forgive the sporadic posts -- I'm just getting back into the swing of things after a long stretch in Kauai with Cheryl and the boys.  It was a beautiful tri…

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Technologies of Peace and War

My good friend Sanjana Hattotuwa recently wrote on his blog ICT4Peace: "To limit the use of technology to pacifism is, I would argue, to stunt its develop…

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e-Work Out

I've got a short article on ODR and Web 2.0 up on the site of e-Work Out, a UK-based organization focused on best practices in business processes. David Fe…

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Nice rats, nasty rats

From an article by Nicholas Wade in yesterday's Times: '{Mr. Albert} hopes to identify 200 sites along the genome at which the tame and ferocious rats…

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Caricaturing your opponent’s stances

From a review entitled "Manic Progressives" by Tobin Harshaw in the New York Times Book Review: 'According to Lakoff, conservatives believe that…

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The myth of Evil

A recent article by Edward Rothstein in the New York Times discusses the book “Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History” by Dav…

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An eye for an eye

“Those of us who had welcomed Bush’s vision of democracy in the Middle East still believe in the promise of a free Iraq and a free Lebanon,” The Daily Star of L…

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He Hit Me First

Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, has a great column in today's New York Times entitled "He Who Cast the First Sto…