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

High Tech Online Dialogue Tools

Bill Warters has a great post on his blog highlighting a collection of info on high tech tools that can be used in online dialogues put together by the National…

Blog

The Role of Manners in a Divided Society

I've been a contributing editor on eBay Radio for about a year now, checking in once a month to take calls and talk about resolving disputes on eBay.  I'…

Blog

Conflict Resolution: A Pacifist Agenda?

Those of us in the conflict resolution field like to think of our work as apolitical.  Trying to keep dialogue constructive, trying to help disputants work towa…

Blog

Regulating identity online

Check out this interesting slashdot entry CmdrTaco put up regarding Blizzard's decision to force him to change his online name. I've had some interesti…

Blog

Restoring Civil Discourse

Who remembers Morton Downey Jr.? For a time his antics seemed to be an anachronism.  Now, however, his spirit seems to haunt all of us. Partisanship has come…

Blog

Aha! My new fancy Stanford CIS blog!

Deliighted to be here with all of you.  What an honor to be invited in.  I'm still reeling. Well, a good place to start with is Kofi from the Washington Po…