Overzealous hiding of usernames

[hwcskidmark]

Alright, hear me out on this.

I totally understand why it's important to withhold from sellers the identities/full usernames of followers, watchers, and "interested" people who've been sent offers. It makes perfect sense from a privacy standpoint that their usernames are obfuscated as a***b or x***y, etc, as they haven't chosen to contact or engage with the seller directly. Others might feel it's silly or suspect more cynical motives, but I'm OK with it, I get it.

Where I think a line should be drawn, however, is when that anonymous user responds to an offer with a typed response. At that point, the seller deserves to know who the freeform message is from, and the option to block any future contact with that user if they see fit.

To continue hiding the username once any sort of written message has been received creates an imbalance, which can be exploited by trolls. And sometimes you just don't want to have any future interaction with someone you've found rude or creepy, even if they haven't broken any site rules. But that's not possible if you don't know who to block.

This is something eBay ought to look at more carefully, as the blanket obfuscation of "buyer" usernames until the moment of purchase is a blunt approach where more nuance is required for the safety and wellbeing of users on both sides of the theoretical transaction.

[tressygirl]

When a new member registers their account on eBay,  eBay give them a username ID which is just a series of letters and ** 's,  as the examples you gave  a**b,  x**y.  Some members do not know how to change that ID,  we often receive posts here for instructions to change username ID's.  So members are not hiding their identity just perhaps not knowing how to change the strange range of letters and stars!

You can block any member who has a username which makes sense say, ' Blackcat'  or one that uses u****xyz.

@hwcskidmark 

[papso22]

While I can see the sense in your suggestion, I don't think Ebay's outdated and overwhelmed software system that is already riddled with glitches could cope with it.

Keeping buyers' identities anonymous during the offer process wil be a single setting, changing that to identify the buyer part way though would complicate a process that needs to be kept simple.

[hwcskidmark]

Sorry, but I do not believe that every single eBay user I've ever sent an offer to has kept a randomly generated username consisting of two characters separated by three asterisks. It's plainly a censoring of their username, chosen or otherwise.

If I was watching one of their items and responded to an offer with "No thank you dear. By the way, your bin's blown over outside", I'm certain they'd see my name as h***k. In your case they'd see t***l.

[hwcskidmark]

I appreciate that the site's code is probably held together with yellowing strips of Sellotape, but in my programming days it would've only meant adding a simple "IF" statement to the displaying of offer responses, along the lines of:

IF the message field is not empty:

  Display buyer's username exactly as retrieved from the database.

ELSE:

  Display buyer's username censored with "***".

[gnosemalf]

In the olden days, usernames were all visible and I remember a number of times being approached by users after winning an auction (usually within minutes), sometimes quite aggressively, wanting to buy the item from me. I imagine that eBay made a decision to obfuscate IDs in a blanket move unaware how the platform might evolve.

[jckl1957]

I agree.

You can only send offers to 'watchers' - if they respond, especially, as you state with a typed message, then I would also like to be able to see who it is.

It would save sellers time as well.

If I have watchers and send an offer, I am fairly certain it will go to 'buyers' who have already been sent an offer but really aren't interested in the item they are watching.

If I knew who they were, I could weed out the time wasters and those who watch but never intend to buy, and just add them to my BBL.

[4_bathrooms]

I think this is a weird quirk due to the Data Protection Act and how the principle of consent works.

An eBay user ID uniquely identifies an eBay member (who is usually a living person) so it is considered personal data. If another member contacts a seller by using the "Contact seller" link or enters into a transaction with the seller (by making an offer or committing to a purchase) they have consented to their eBay user ID being shared with the seller.

However, when an eBay user watches an item they have not consented to having their eBay user ID shared with the seller. If a seller subsequently makes an offer to an item's watchers this still applies; eBay does not need to share a watcher's eBay ID with the seller unless the watcher accepts the offer. The difference between the watcher replying to a seller-initiated offer and clicking the "Contact seller" link in the listing is in the former case the watcher is replying to what is essentially an unsolicited communication.

I notice section 11 of eBay's privacy notice states the following:

"To help protect your personal data, we allow only limited access to other users' contact, delivery and financial information as necessary to facilitate your transactions and collect payments. However, when users are involved in a transaction, they have access to each other's name, username, (alias) email address and other contact and delivery information."

[hwcskidmark]

This doesn't make sense to me. If the user is just selecting the Decline option, fair enough. But if they're optionally typing a message to the seller, then that's functionally the same as clicking the Contact Seller button. Receiving offers from sellers on items you've watched is part of being on eBay - if anything, it's a draw to the site - so I don't really go along with it being unsolicited contact... but even if it was, they're actively choosing to reciprocate that contact when they're not obliged to engage at all, let alone in a customised way.

That said, if eBay does have legal concerns of that nature, it's still incredibly simple: just add a line of text under the box where they'd type, advising that if they include a message then their username will be revealed to the seller. Hey presto! Explicit consent.

[4_bathrooms]

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@hwcskidmark wrote:

This doesn't make sense to me. If the user is just selecting the Decline option, fair enough. But if they're optionally typing a message to the seller, then that's functionally the same as clicking the Contact Seller button.

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The difference is when a buyer clicks the "Contact seller" button the buyer is initiating contact with the seller; when they're replying to an offer the contact was initiated by the seller. I have no idea why eBay felt the need to include an option to send a message at all; just "Accept", "Decline" and "Make counter offer" are all the options that are needed. The message always has a link to the item from where the buyer can find the "Contact seller" link but any message sent that way would be outside the offer process that was initiated by the seller.

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@hwcskidmark wrote:

That said, if eBay does have legal concerns of that nature, it's still incredibly simple: just add a line of text under the box where they'd type, advising that if they include a message then their username will be revealed to the seller. Hey presto! Explicit consent.

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That is functionally the same thing as a pre-ticked box which is not sufficient for explicitly obtaining consent. There would need to be an unticked box the buyer is required to tick to enable the message to be sent.

[hwcskidmark]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:There would need to be an unticked box the buyer is required to tick to enable the message to be sent.

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Then that's what they should do! It's not a herculean task, it's a basic line of code that any professional could easily slot in, no matter how archaic the framework around it.

[4_bathrooms]

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@hwcskidmark wrote:

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@4_bathrooms wrote:There would need to be an unticked box the buyer is required to tick to enable the message to be sent.

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Then that's what they should do! It's not a herculean task, it's a basic line of code that any professional could easily slot in, no matter how archaic the framework around it.

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They would also need to record the fact user X consented to their username being disclosed to user Y every single time the box was ticked and the form submitted. Also not a herculean task but when it comes to complying with legislation eBay are going to do it in whichever way requires the least amount of effort on their part.

[papso22]

And unless it's a legal requirement or of benefit to ebay, they won't change anything!