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

Taking on Fox News

Howell Raines in the Washington Post: "Under the pretense of correcting a Democratic bias in news reporting, Fox has accomplished something that seemed im…

Blog

Coffee Party USA

I'll be at the Santa Clara coffee party on Saturday.  Hope to see you all there! http://coffeepartyusa.com/ "MISSION: The Coffee Party Movement gives…

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In a sensible country...

Brooks in today's NYT: "In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a se…

Blog

Are you a tyrant?

Interview in the NYT: "Q. You tell business owners to forget about being likable. Is there something wrong with employees liking you? A. You have to trea…

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Obama meets the House Republicans

This video was UTTERLY MEZMERIZING to watch.  Really an incredible event in modern American politics. Partial transcript: "Part of the reason I accepted…

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The common ground foundation

Our President, last night: "I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad…

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wisdom of crowds vs. meanness of mobs

Jeffery A. Salter in The New York Times: "In the 1990s, Jaron Lanier was one of the digital pioneers hailing the wonderful possibilities that would be real…

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Tinselgate and online redress

An inside chonicle of the kerfluffle (a.k.a "Tinselgate") over the White House xmas tree, with an ODR emphasis added: "During the first three we…

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Necessary but not sufficient

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times: "...these views shaped how I have responded to the financial catastrophe of the past few years. I was convinced that,…