Latest eBay BS

[O. Sharp]

William Donzelli wrote, in part:

> I am not sure if it will do any good, but I encourage everyone to
> write a note to Ebay  requesting that they revise this new system.

I find the hardest part of writing to eBay is finding an address to write 
to. They seem to like hiding any means of direct contact.  :)  They do 
have a "suggestion box" sort of thing, though, which I can _hope_ 
somebody actually reads:

  http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html

...and I just sent them the following:

  I see eBay has chosen to withhold information about other bidders from 
  the "Bidding History" pages of several auctions. While eBay's desire 
  to protect the bidders' identities "so bad guys cannot target bidders 
  with fake offers" (as eBay's explanation suggests) is understandable, 
  I must also note that it effectively prevents bidders from being able 
  to identify, and protect themselves from, shill bidding. To my mind - 
  especially because most of what I do on eBay is buy - the benefit of 
  your new policy isn't _nearly_ enough to compensate for the loss of 
  security and knowledge I have in being able to verify that only 
  legitimate bidders are bidding against me.

  Because of this, I regret to say I will _not_ be bidding on eBay 
  auctions which have masked bid histories (I really _do_ regret it, 
  because there's an auction [#330075638902] I was planning to bid on 
  before eBay implemented this feature!). This is unfortunate, and 
  regrettable, but I'm confident I'll find other forums to buy most of 
  what I'm looking for which have greater transparency.

  I hope eBay will reconsider, and quickly end, this experiment in policy.

Agree with it or don't, as you choose. But that's what I think, and I 
figured it wouldn't hurt to tell them.  :)

(And yes, I'm completely serious. I suppose I'll miss out on some deals 
this way, but if eBay really likes their new rule I'm sure there are 
some _other_ places where I can spend the money. <g>)

                -O.-