From...

by Stacy Collett

(IDG) -- Online auction users in North Carolina who were required to get an auctioneer's license or face criminal charges were granted a reprieve last week.

The North Carolina Auctioneer Licensing Board in Raleigh voted to temporarily stop its attempts to enforce state licensing regulations on the Internet.

Executive director Bob Hamilton said the board will delay enforcement indefinitely until it meets with a joint select committee on information technology the state has created to see how the Internet affects all the state's licensing requirements.

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"In the state, there are over 50 other occupational licensing boards. The [joint IT] committee wanted to see how the Internet affects all the different licensing boards, and either try to do them all as a group or just make sure that everything is looked at," Hamilton said.

The controversy began when state auction boards in New Hampshire and then North Carolina (see story) announced that they intended to revisit existing statutes that required licenses for auctioneers, which included requiring licensing fees from small at-home auction sellers in their states. The New Hampshire Board of Auctioneers was first, publishing an open letter to auction users in which it stated that regular auction sellers in that state needed to get an auctioneer's license or face criminal penalties. North Carolina quickly followed suit, preparing pamphlets warning small auction users that they must be licensed.

New Hampshire is continuing with its licensing requirement.