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ebaY Opts Us In for SPAM

This email is being received by registered ebaY members FROM ebaY. Headers have been checked and they are accurate. This first example was sent by ebaY 19 December 2000.

QUOTE, - Several times a month, eBay sends out valuable email communications with news, offers and special events that help you buy and sell. Unfortunately, we have noticed that an error occurred during your registration process that prevented you from receiving these communications. Many of your Notification Preference defaults were set to "no" rather than to "yes", which means that unlike other eBay members, you're not receiving these types of communications.

We'd like to resolve this problem quickly and efficiently. Therefore, on 12/19/00, we returned all your Notification Preferences to the standard default of "yes" to put you in line with the rest of the eBay community. However, we want you to choose your Notification Preferences rather than rely on our standard defaults and will therefore not include you in any communications until 1/04/00. This will provide you with some time to evaluate these choices and modify your Notification Preferences. You will, however, continue to receive certain administrative emails that are part of executing your eBay transactions.

Of course, you can review and change your Preferences by clicking here.

You can also change your Notification Preferences at any time by selecting site map.

As always, your privacy is extremely important to us. To learn more about your relationship with eBay, refer to the User Agreement and/or Privacy Policy today.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. Thanks for being a valuable part of the eBay community. - ENDQUOTE

On 9 Jan 01 in response to a reporter, Kevin Pursglove QUOTE - An eBay spokesman said Tuesday the problem occurred with six million users who registered between April and November of last year. New users have to "opt out" of e-mail from the company, which includes administrative messages about auctions and news about special offers and events. But users who registered during those months had some options clicked off - meaning they would not receive the mail - when they were supposed to be on. "We are concerned that many people who signed up during that period of time that they might not be getting all the e-mail that they do want," said eBay's Kevin Pursglove. -ENDQUOTE
Link to article

Unfortunately Mr Pursglove is mistaken in his information. A check of The Auction Guild's ebaY IDs showed EVERY ID had the preferances changed, even though all the ID's were registered prior to Apr 2000. Reports on the OAI/OTI chat boards reflect a large number of users reporting changed preferences.

As a result TAG strongly recommends that every ebaY registrant go check their preferences to insure they are set correctly.

To reset your preferences go to SPAM Preference Settings

We also recommend you file a complaint on ebaY with TRUSTe COMPLAINTS and BBBonline COMPLAINTS to report this violation of not only resetting user preferences to opt them IN to receive SPAM rather than OUT so users could be notified of a problem without being SPAMMED, but also for not informing ALL users via an announcement on the Announcement Board.

-TAG.