Frequently Asked Questions about eBay's Email Fowarding System

• Why are these changes being made?
• Will this change how people buy and sell on eBay?
• Will eBay have access to my messages? Will eBay read my email?
• Will I be able to send pictures or other attachments with my messages?
• How does the Contact an eBay Member form work?
• Why did you change the Ask Seller a Question feature?
• How does the Ask Seller a Question feature work?
• How does eBay make sure that the email system doesn't go down?
• What if my message does not get through?
• Will I still be able to view email addresses on eBay?
• Will this change affect how I communicate with international users?
• What if I still receive spam (unsolicited, commercial emails) despite these features?
• Changes to enhance privacy make it more difficult to detect potential shill bidding since I cannot easily see email addresses. How do I manage this?

Why are these changes being made?
These changes are being made for several reasons:

• These changes are being made based on community concerns about email address harvesting (collecting) resulting in unsolicited, commercial email (spam). They will also minimize unsolicited email from other members. Spam-related issues are a top cause of customer complaints and we are dedicated to fixing the problem.

  NOTE: If you use your email address as your User ID, you should consider changing your User ID to a nickname instead so that 3rd parties will not be able to get your email address from the eBay site.

• To inform members about our policy regarding the completion of eBay transactions outside of eBay.

Will this change how people buy and sell on eBay?
These changes will not change how sellers and bidders communicate with each other in transactions. There will be no change to how sellers and winning bidders are able to contact one another in closed listings. In active listings, sellers will be able to request all bidder email addresses as they do today.

Will eBay have access to my messages? Will eBay read my email?
No. The email forwarding system does not store your message. We will not read your email.

Will I be able to send pictures or other attachments with my messages?
Messages forwarded by the eBay email forwarding system will not support attachments.

How does the Contact an eBay Member form work?
Here are the steps:

1. Clicking on a User ID of an eBay member whom you are not involved with in a transaction will open a Contact an eBay Member form instead of providing you an email address, if you are signed/logged in.
2. After entering a message and clicking the Send button, eBay will forward the message to your recipient. This is similar to the "email this auction to a friend" feature. The message received by your recipient will contain your email address so any response will be sent directly to you and not go through eBay. The feature will automatically send a copy of the message to you.

Why did you change the Ask a Seller a Question feature?
To improve the feature and address concerns about email address harvesting resulting in spam. The new feature will forward an email with the item number and title and a link to the item.

Note: The feature will be available to all when the item is active. Once the item ends, the winning bidder will have access to the form, in addition to the seller's email address. Other members will use the Contact an eBay Member form.

How does the Ask a Seller a Question feature work?
Here are the steps:

1. Clicking on the seller User ID or the Ask Seller a Question features on an active item will open the Ask Seller a Question form, if you are signed/logged in.
2. After entering a message and clicking the Send button, eBay will forward the message to your seller. The message received by the seller will contain your email address so any response will be sent directly to you and not go through eBay. The feature will automatically send a copy of the message to you.

How does eBay make sure that the email forwarding system does not go down?
It is possible that any email system can go down at times however, eBay is investing significantly in equipment to help prevent this from happening.

Note: In closed listings, winning bidders and sellers will still be able to get each other's email address as they do now from the View Item page. In active listings, sellers will still be able to get the email addresses of their bidders. There will be no need to go through the email forwarding system in these cases.

What if my message does not get through?
The Contact an eBay Member and Ask Seller a Question features provide members with a notice in the event that the email address on file for the recipient no longer works or the recipient's mail provider is unable to receive the message. eBay will attempt to send the message three times and if it is still not successfully sent after the third time, a message will be forwarded to you indicating the message was undeliverable.

Will I still be able to view email addresses on eBay?
Email addresses continue to be visible in limited situations:

1. Active items
   • a seller is able to view email address(es) of their bidder(s)
2. Closed items
   • a seller is able to view the winning bidder(s) email address(es)
   • any winning bidder is able to view the seller's email address

Will this change affect how I communicate with international users?
Once the features are implemented on our international sites, communication with international members will follow the same process.

What if I still receive spam (unsolicited, commercial email) despite these features?
These changes will make it more difficult for email address "harvesters" to collect email addresses on eBay. If you are still receiving spam, changing your email address may help prevent the problem since your current email address may still be circulated in mailing lists. We realize, though, that this may be very inconvenient to do.

If you use your email address as your User ID, you should change your User ID to a nickname instead so that 3rd parties will not be able to get your email address from the eBay site.

Changes to enhance privacy make it more difficult to detect potential shill bidding since I cannot easily see email addresses. How do I manage this?
These changes are essential to address a number of issues, e.g., spam, bid siphoning, and the completion of eBay transactions outside of eBay. We believe that this is the right move as we have implemented internal tools along with enhancements to Bid History and Bidder Search to effectively address the concern. Click here to learn more.