eBay Revises Privacy Policy so it can Bombard Users with Unwanted Targeted Ads

[mandy]

eBay revised its privacy policy and told users that, beginning in July, it would begin serving up targeted advertisements based on eBay's information about users. Users will be able to set their preferences in My eBay with a feature called AdChoice that, according to the company, "lets you tell us whether you want us to use the information we have about you to customize the ads you see."

Calling itself a transparent community, eBay said it would identify the new ads served with the program. While eBay did not identify the companies it would be working with to serve the ads, Yahoo is the exclusive provider of all graphical advertisements throughout the eBay.com site and provides sponsored search results on eBay.com search results pages, while Google is the exclusive text-based advertising service for eBay outside the United States...

full article: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m05/i21/s02

Randy Smythe on eBay's privacy/user agreement changes:

You Blog It, eBay Owns It (too), Says New User Agreement

"eBay has always claimed rights to auction descriptions, and in fact, it grants its affiliates permission to republish them. Now, in addition to content areas such as seller listings, feedback comments, "About Me" profile pages and discussion boards, eBay has numerous Web 2.0 content areas, allowing buyers and sellers to write reviews and guides and publish blogs and wikis. Not to mention videos embedded in eBay listings."

By being a member of eBay, users now grant eBay a content license that reads, "When you give us content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise the copyright, publicity, and database rights (but no other rights) you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future."

full article: http://rksmythe.blogspot.com/2007/05/rea...ay-20.html

[mandy]

Somewhat related - targeted ads:

I noticed something odd yesterday about the ads that appear on eBay search results pages. Do a search on eBay.com for "sopranos dvd" and you are likely to see an ad for Netflix. This means eBay is sending people who are coming to the site to buy DVDs away from its own site to a service where people can rent DVDs.

Back in 2000, sellers were so angry when eBay did the same thing, they organized the "Million Auction March." That time, eBay backed down...

full article: http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blo...74016.html

[mandy]

TAG on the changes:

A quick read of the agreement and privacy policy appears to give ebaY the right to
read and censor all email sent using their system, something ebaY said it would
never do (as a matter of interest last week ebaY blocked an email with promotion
information sent to another user through the ebaY system, so communication
between users is now closed unless involved in an ebaY sale - so much for
community); permission for ebaY to exchange all financial and other personal
information between ebaY and PayPal and any other ebaY company, something ebaY
said it would never do; permission to allow ebaY to share, sell or rent your financial
and personal information to anyone they want, something ebaY said they would
never do; permission for ebaY to personalize ads based on your personal and
financial information that they have gathered and saved about you, something ebaY
said it would never do; in other words it abrogates everything that would protect
your personal and financial information from being exploited by ebaY in any way
ebaY desires - and since you sign the user agreement by using the site - ebaY feels
you have no recourse - and only a court of law will change that.

In addition ebaY is once again playing with the copyright of your information -
images, listings etc - and though they have always sworn that the only reason they
have the copyright privileges of your material is so that they can post your listings
on the site, they are trying to once again twist this so they can do whatever they
want with this information.  Once again a successful class action, suit by state
attorneys' general, or government action will be the only thing that gives ebaY users
any rights at all - since ebaY continues to pervert what community means into
whatever is profitable for ebaY insiders. 

full article: http://lists.topica.com/lists/tagnotes/r...1721020268&sort=d&start=531

[WebGraphicsSource]

I tried to contact a member today thru eBay's message system and this is the error I got;



of course it had nothing to do with eBay, so I found his website instead 

[BellisimaJ.]

I am considering the official termination of my relationship with ebay. If they are going to do what they please with my information, they can go boink themselves as far as I'm concerned.

[move]
EBAY SUCKS! [/move]