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ebaY Recommendations Email
EDITORIAL
Aug 2001

ebaY decided it was going to do the very thing it prohibits its sellers from doing, send emails to underbidders listing other auctions with like items the bidder might be interested in. In the OAI/OTI this is called bottom feeding, using the skill of the person putting up the auction which attracted bidders in the first place, to get that bidder to look at someone elses auction. This is another move by ebaY to claim the buyer as their customer as opposed to their real customer, the seller. The buyer is the sellers customer NOT ebaYs, as ebaY does not provide anything for sale to the buyer, does not provide services to the buyer, and has no part in the successful conclusion of a transaction. ebaY claims it is a venue only, and it is time someone challenged the legality of ebaYs venue only status when they directly interfere in the auction process between seller and buyer. There is a link to the Jacket Auction at the end of this editorial.

Many folks protested this move by ebaY, both sellers and buyers. The sellers did not want THEIR customers stolen by ebaY, the buyers did not want to be SPAMMED by ebaY. All protest fell on deaf ears. One seller decided to put up a protest auction on ebaY by selling his shooting star jacket.

Though word of this auction spread across ebaY, ebaY did not pull the auction until they realized the media exposure this auction was going to get. ebaY then removed the auction from its database. Fortunately this auction was saved by several people and many members of the media received links to the saved auction. They also received links to the information on the bidders who supported the protest.

ebaY sent the seller who put up the protest auction, this email about his ended auction -

"Your listing(s) contained several statements that are considered gratuitous in nature. We realize that you may not be aware of this policy, but auction listings are not the appropriate forum for voicing personal opinions, or including contact information about other members. eBay provides discussion opportunities elsewhere on the site, but the content of auction listings is limited to describing the item being offered. Therefore, we have ended the auction, and all listing fees will be refunded to your account. Our User Agreement also states, in part: "5.1 Listing Description. You must be legally able to sell the item(s) you list for sale on our Site. You must describe your item and all terms of sale on the listing page of our Site. Your listings may include text descriptions, graphics, pictures and other content relevant to the sale of that item..." Please view our guideline page for a better understanding of our auction guidelines and how they affect the way you list your items: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-list.html For information on infringing or illegal items or for information on other eBay listing guidelines, please view the following URL: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-items.html For more information on why eBay has ended an auction, please visit: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-endauction.html We value you as a member of our community and wish to continue our relationship, so we respectfully ask that you refrain from any violations of the Listing Policies or User Agreement in the future. As stated in previous attempts to contact you today, we will be happy to address any of your personal concerns. We thank you in advance for your cooperation. Regards, Conrad (VeRO Program) (ended@ebay.com) eBay"

A member of the media did contact the seller and did write an article about the protest auction, and the action by ebaY that percipitated the auction. The Article

This finally got ebaYs attention, and in an effort at damage control, they contacted the seller who talked to Meg Whitman, ebaYs CEO. This is what the seller said about the conversation, in a post on the ebaY discuss new features (DNF) board a center of the protest against the Recommendation emails -

"Good Morning. I have never posted on the DNF Board before but I feel as if many of you are my friends and I am certain that most of you know who I am. I certainly wanted to thank all of you for your overwhelming support of the Shooting Star Jacket auction, the petition and all the followups to them. Those were very vital actions. So were all your emails (over 800 and they are still arriving) expressing support for my action and voicing your complaints that eBay has stopped listening to us. And all the messages right here and on all the other eBay and non-eBay boards left no doubt where a large percentage of the user base was on the RECO issue. The bid history of the Shooting Star Jacket had some frivolous bids (especially near the end where a half-dozen folks registered new user accounts just to bid and retract) but it also had more Red Stars than have been seen in any one place since the last time the Soviet Army marched in a May Day parade. No rational company could ignore that type of feedback. eBay didn't ignore it either. On Wednesday, I met for 40 minutes with Meg and Pierre to discuss why someone with over 25,000 feedbacks would be so disgusted that he would act as I did and why so many others would join him. Let me tell you all that both of them were (and are) genuinely concerned and neither had heard, in detail, just why we were so upset. Unlike all the other changes (the reserve fee, the listing fee increase and the restrictions on links and email addresses) this one was driven not by revenue considerations but in an effort to cater to the large number of folks who come to eBay, find something they want, bid on it, are outbid and never come back again. Obviously, eBay would like to capture them as buyers either as a one-time shot or on a regular basis and RECO was designed for that purpose. eBay simply didn't consider the extreme negative effect that this message would have on eBay sellers. They didn't listen to the Voices people who told them that, they didn't listen to the comments here, they didn't listen to the 20% or so of the folks in surveys who hated the idea. But they listened to 8,000+ page hits, 150+ bids in just a few hours and all those Red Stars. Yes, all the other folks count as well but these are eBay's largest volume sellers. And they listened to the portions of the emails (edited to remove any possible indentifying information) that you had sent me in which so very many of you indicated that, if a viable alternative existed, RECO was enough to cause you to leave. Meg took lots of notes and promised me that she would discuss all our concerns with the eBay staff and do whatever was possible to modify the program so that it would not have such a negative effect on us. And she has talked with all the involved folks at eBay (some of whom were already working on revisions along these lines). And I should emphasize that all along the way some of eBay's management were 100% on our side. On Friday, a message will be posted on the eBay Announcement Board describing all the changes but I am authorized to come here, to the folks who were so instrumental in convincing eBay that such changes needed to be made, and to tell you the most important parts. All sellers will be able to opt out. You will get the chance to ensure that no RECO emails are ever sent to any of your underbidders and, once selected, that status will be retained. All buyers will be able to opt out. Every RECO email will have a link on it that, once used, will permanently stop all such spam to that buyer. No RECO emails will be sent out until at least 24 hours have passed from the time of closing so the original seller can, if he wishes and has multiples, relist the item. RECO emails will list the original seller's auction at the top with a link to all his auctions before any others are mentioned. "Recommended" will vanish to be replaced with a much less suggestive term. I might have preferred it if the entire project were killed never to surface again but we won so much that I think we proved that eBay does care and does listen. I did this because I thought the cause was right. You folks all joined in because you thought it was right. It was. We didn't get 100% of what we wanted but we got most of it and, from this battle, eBay has certainly learned to listen. I may read the messages here once in a while but I am quite unlikely to post any more here. And I think I'll keep the jacket. God bless you all."

TAG sees the excuses made for ebaY as pure garbage and another successful spin job on ebaYs part. We also see the changes mentioned as little more than ebaY once again manipulating a situation to make it appear they really care and are making compromises, while not making any changes of substance. In truth, ebaY is still acting in bad faith and in an unethical manner, as ALL Opt Out emails violate internet ethics. These are the changes ebaY says it is making to the Recommendation emails, as reported in TAGnotes -

Here is what is changing. ebaY will no longer use the term "recommendation" to describe the list of items sent to bidders. The items will be described as items with similar titles, and the email notice will contain information about the listing that the bidder just lost. ebaY will allow sellers to opt out of the feature. If a seller chooses to opt out, bidders that do not win an item the seller has listed will not receive an email with similar items, and the seller's items will not be included in any emails sent to bidders looking for similar items. This change is being developed now and should be released within two to three weeks. TAG sees this as a lose lose policy for sellers. The end of item email will now include a list of some of the seller's current listings at the top of the email, along with a link to a complete list of the seller's other items. The similar item list will follow the list of the seller's items. When a bidder confirms a bid on ebaY, they will be able to opt out of receiving the email. Notice of the ability to opt out will be more hidden, as it will be at the bottom of the page instead of next to the bid confirmation. ebaY will include a link in each end of item notice to the user preference page so buyers can opt out of receiving end of item notices. When the opt out preference is available users may opt out at:

http://pages.ebay.com/services/myebay/optin-login.html

Buyers that opt out will be permanently opted out and will no longer have to repeatedly select "no" to not receive the emails. TAG sees this ability to opt out from the ebaY SPAM options page and the best part of this compromise. ebaY is also delaying the end of auction notices a minimum of 24 hours in order to give sellers a chance to re-list the same item or post similar items to the one they just sold.

A very eloquent post by a power seller on the DNF board put the changes very much in perspective - "I have read and reread the post on the announcement board about the recommendations emails and the more I read it the more pissed off I get. For ebay to force this crap on us and then tell us that 80% actually like their Spam is an insult of my intelligence. I don't see any major change to the recommendations emails.. It is still opt out, NOT opt in, and changing the wording just doesn't impress me much either. Ebay sends out survey's that are written with leading questions so as to get the results they want and then try to tell us we actually like this stuff...Who are you trying to fool ebay?... Every time ebay makes one of these stupid changes they come back about a week later with some little minor change to show they are listening to the community and then everyone jumps up and down saying "oh boy ebay is really listening to us"... Well that is BULL.... I've seen that enough now that it is making me sick.......Ebay is listening to us huh....Why do we still have a watch feature that cut bidding on the ebay site in half?...... Why is MY Ebay page still unreadable due to all the added useless junk?...Why do we still have ebay's email system in place?... Why is there a category for 5 1/2" speakers when none exist?... Why is there not a scheduling feature on Mister Lister?..Why did we have a 20% fee increase and then a cutback of services.. Why does ebay no longer give credits for outages and denies they ever even happen?...Why do we have a SYI for that doesn't work half the time due to the IPIX crap when most of us don't even use IPIX?... ......And now ebay is wanting to merge half.com with ebay. It is obvious that any suggestions we make to ebay is a complete waste of time. Ebay is going to do what ebay wants to do and then blame it on user recommendations.....The more I see of ebay's smoke and mirrors the more disgusted I get. Its getting to where almost every new announcement does nothing but get me more disgusted"

TAG feels ebaY should delete the recommendation email program altogether. At an absolute minimum, ebaY should make the program Opt IN not Opt OUT. But TAG knows ebaY wont do that, because the only way ebaY can get users to participate in this email SPAM program, is to trick them into it with the SPAMMERs Opt Out option. -TAG
VIEW Jacket Auction