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January 18, 2007

"Safeguarding Member IDs" On eBay

Safeguarding Member IDs" (SMI) is a new program by eBay that makes bidders more anonymous. According to an eBay spokesman, the purpose is to cause "a reduction in unwanted commercial and malicious spam (including Fake Second Chance Offers) to bidders on higher-priced auction-style listings."

To accomplish this, bidders IDs will show up as "bidder1", "bidder2", etc. The seller will be able to see the IDs, but no one else can. Currently, this applies only to items that sell for $200+, but we can certainly expect it to occur site-wide, if it's successful.

eBay acknowledges that this might increase shilf bidding. Shill bidding occurs when:

1) Sellers artificially raise the bids by bidding on their own items with other accounts or by getting friends to do so
2) Buyers can bid a high price on an item they covet, which discourages other bidders. Then at the last moment, they withdraw that bid and the price takes a nosedive, at which point they scoop up the item

eBay claims to have a sophisticated shill bidding detection system, but this reprehensible practice still remains. So, we will see what happens with their new SMI system.

Posted by SydneyJohnston at January 18, 2007 2:43 PM

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