TulipTools Internet Business Owners and Online Sellers Community

Launching on eBay Motors this month.  Planned for the rest of the eBay.com site in early 2007.

Quote:***A Message from Rob Chesnut – Safeguarding Member IDs on eBay Motors*** 

November 02, 2006 | 01:02PM PST/PT

Hello….I hope you'll take a moment and read about an important Trust & Safety initiative that we will be launching soon on eBay Motors in the U.S.

Since eBay began in 1995, it's been our job to balance the need for openness and transparency in the marketplace, with the need to protect our Community of members from the threats that have appeared as the Internet has flourished. As the Community has grown from the size of a small town in 1997, to the size of a large country today, we've had to take measures to protect our members that also reduce transparency.

From the beginning, any member of the Community could request the contact details of any other member and the bidding process was very transparent. As we've grown, we've limited communication to members involved in transactions with each other. Additionally in 2003, we eliminated the public display of email addresses from the site, and therefore, required thousands of people to set up new User IDs. Naturally, as we've stepped up education and other efforts to improve safety, the bad guys continued their efforts to try to exploit our members.

The User IDs of members – plus their member information such as feedback and previous bidding and/or buying activity – have always been freely available to anyone visiting the site. Members have been able to access this information from the item page, bid history page, and Advanced Search by Bidder feature. Unfortunately – while bid history and contact information about trading colleagues are helpful when evaluating a transaction, and provide a level of trust within the transaction – bad guys can use this information for potentially harmful purposes.

One way they use this information is to send unwanted commercial spam, spoof emails, and fake Second Chance Offer emails. While legitimate Second Chance Offer emails are a great tool on eBay that give sellers the ability to offer another buyer an additional item they may have available, fake Second Chance Offers and other types of solicitations sent by bad guys generally lure the targeted member off the eBay website and collect payment through an unsafe payment method, such as wire transfer—all while providing the false impression that eBay endorses the transaction..

As our Community knows, the problem of spam, spoof and fake Second Chance Offer emails has not gone away. In fact, despite industry leading efforts to educate the Community about online safety (eBay Toolbar, tutorials and safety messaging), partnering with law enforcement and industry groups, and investments in technology that make the site more safe – we've seen this problem grow. Increasingly, sellers and buyers have turned to us for a solution.

Introducing the Safeguarding Member IDs Project
The Safeguarding Member IDs project is a new approach to auction-style listings that offers more privacy for our members through changing how bidding information is displayed. Following intensive development and review, as well as Community input, we believe the Safeguarding Member IDs project provides the Community with enough information about the bidders involved in an auction-style listing for them to feel confident in placing a bid – without revealing actual User IDs. We're implementing this new system on listings with a high bid of $200 or greater, which is where we believe it can have the greatest positive impact. The bid information for listings where the bid is lower than $200 will display as it does today.

Here's what will change:

   1. On the bid history page for each listing we'll replace member User IDs with aliases (such as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) in the order of their bids placed. For each bidder involved in a listing, we'll display the number of bids in unique categories that they've placed, a range that their feedback score falls within (i.e. 10-49, for instance), their percentage of positive feedback, their length of time as an eBay member, and the number of bids they've placed on the item. At the end of a listing, the winning bidder's User ID will be displayed on the item page. Please note: Sellers will still be able to access bidder information on their listings through the Bid History page and the My eBay selling table.
   2. In My eBay, members will no longer have access to the high-bidder column from bid and watch tables.
   3. On the item page, you'll only be able to see the high-bidder ID if you are the signed-in seller of the item or the signed-in high bidder.
   4. Through the Advanced Search by Bidder link, we'll only show completed listings within the last 30 days.

Future enhancements are being designed that will provide even more transaction data about the bidders and seller involved in a transaction. We'll continue to update the community on these changes as these plans become finalized.

Safeguarding Member IDs – Launch plans
Clearly, even the smallest changes on the eBay marketplace may have unexpected effects, and we want to move forward carefully. While we are cautious of making changes to the site during the holiday season, we feel strongly that this is the right thing to do for the Community.

Our first step is to launch on eBay Motors in early November. This decision is based on Community input in these categories, especially in Motor Vehicles, where the rates of member reported spoof and fake Second Chance Offers have been higher than in other categories. As November and December are slower months for vehicle sales, we believe this is the right time for implementation.

If all goes well, we could implement the Safeguarding Member IDs project on eBay.com in early 2007.

I know these changes will concern some members. My team and I have had many conversations with buyers and sellers about these plans, and I can tell you that this project has been intensely debated internally, as well. But considering the nature of the problem we all face, it's time to take stronger measures to ensure our members can continue to feel safe when they transact on eBay.

To learn more, please read our Frequently Asked Questions. We know you'll have more questions, so the Trust & Safety team will be hosting a workshop shortly after this project launches. Please stay tuned to the General Announcements board for day and time.

Also I'II be joining Bill Cobb at his next monthly Town Hall on November 30 at 4 p.m. Pacific time to talk more about the Safeguarding Member IDs project.

Sincerely,

Rob Chesnut
Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety

Gee, I wonder if they can possibly come up with any more changes to the site to be implemented during the holiday selling season? :

Quote:the need for openness and transparency in the marketplace

Somebody's been using the bullsh*t generator.

Quote: Increasingly, sellers and buyers have turned to us for a solution.

Who else would they turn to if they sell through eBay? Derrrr.

Quote:Our first step is to launch on eBay Motors in early November.

Just in time for Christmas.

Quote:If all goes well, we could implement the Safeguarding Member IDs project on eBay.com in early 2007.

In time for Christmas, 2007.

It's only a matter of time before we can't even see our own high bidder's name. It will just be "highbidder," and eBay will control all correspondence.

Quote:It's only a matter of time before we can't even see our own high bidder's name. It will just be "highbidder," and eBay will control all correspondence

I do believe that this is what they are planning. They want to eliminate all contact between the buyer and the seller to keep both buyers and sellers on the site.
I also believe that the "me" page will be eliminated before the end of 2007. 

Ebay wants to eliminate the sellers's from having a unique identity, building a customer base for their store, and taking all their business off of Ebay. Sellers will very soon find themselves nameless, faceless, and out of business. The about me page will be replaced by "my world". I don't think Ebay cares much about the small auction sites like WP, BV, etc... because they know eventually many of those sellers will go back to Ebay. The sellers being targeted are those who can and already have started their own website. They want to shut down the use of Ebay as a customer aquisition tool.

The mindset of a monopoly corporation will not allow individuality. The only name they want recognized is their own.

Quote:They want to shut down the use of Ebay as a customer aquisition tool.

Exactly right!

Their next move will also be doing something similar on Paypal as well, because I know other sellers who have used Paypal to communicate with their buyers through email as well. They will shut down all avenues of communication between buyers and sellers.
The other problem is that buyers will also become trained to believe they are buying the item from Ebay and not an independent seller.

Quote:Regarding Wednesday's announcement, users posting on eBay discussion boards were concerned about the consequences of reduced transparency, believing it would be easier for sellers to "shill bid" on their own listings. One user said, "Of course eBay will be seeing this as a win, win situation as they will in fact reduce the amount of fraudulent auctions as well as the embarrassing need to send so many "not enough evidence" form letters." He was referring to letters eBay sends to members who report shill-bidding activity that say eBay has not found enough evidence of shill bidding to suspend the seller.

Quote:The question arises whether shoppers may be inhibited from bidding on an auction without being able to see whom they are bidding against. eBay did not return a phone call seeking comment by press time. Some users on the eBay discussion board devoted to bidding indicated they would cease bidding on auctions once bidding reached $200. "Let's hope they stop the implementation when it decreases sales, annoys people and encourages scamming and shilling."

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i03/s01

Quote:Ebay wants to eliminate the seller's from having a unique identity, building a customer base for their store, and taking all their business off of Ebay.

This seems plausible. It's only a matter of time before we see "high bidder1" "high bidder 2" and "seller"

Eliminating the use of usernames would force eBay buyers to search for specific products through their search/catalog system--and would stop them from easily going straight to their favorites. It would also hinder the customer acquisition tool aspect of eBay.

Quote:"Let's hope they stop the implementation when it decreases sales, annoys people and encourages scamming and shilling."

Fat chance.