posted on September 23, 2000 09:18:39 PM new
I wouldn't want it done to me, and I wouldn't do it either, but suppose...
You sell, say, 100 items a month. With a little record keeping you've got 100 names and adresses - phone #s even (and CC#s or checking account #s.) - over 1000 in a years time.
I hear so much about 'recovering costs any way you can' - from extra handling or whatever. Could you sell that data? To whom? How much? Would you?
posted on September 24, 2000 05:06:33 AM new
No, it has never crossed my mind. But now that I've thought about it, I would consider keeping track of the obituaries in my local paper and sell that list as potential customers to someone so inclined to purchase such crap.
posted on September 24, 2000 05:16:16 AM new
I feel that it is unethical to sell that information unless you obtain permission in advance. Of course few if any people would give permission. There are sellers on eBay now who use auctions to generate leads which they then sell. They may make no money off the auction itself, but premium leads can be worth quite a few dollars.
Maybe if you offered a discount of a dollar off to persons who agreed to allow you to sell their info you might get a few takers. If you could then turn around and sell those leads for two dollars, that might work.
posted on September 24, 2000 06:07:34 AM new
Thanks for bringing this up. I'll be sure now to add it to my EOA template/payment terms to our customers that we do not sell their names nor share them with others! In answer to your question, no we do not nor would we sell names to others.
posted on September 24, 2000 08:18:32 AM new
Trouble is, abacaxi, they'd never known the seller had breached their privacy that way.
I am really surprised and alarmed that the originator of this thread posted this question. It's a fundamental violation of eBay's seller's policy, which both common sense and a ten-second scroll of eBay's Privacy Policy can tell you.
5.Your Use of Other Users' Information.
In order to facilitate interaction among all eBay community members, our service allows you to access other users' contact information. Further, as a seller you will be sent via email the User ID, email address and other information of the winning bidder(s), and as a winning bidder you will be sent via email the User ID, email address and other information of the seller.
By entering into our User Agreement, you agree that, with respect to other user's personally identifiable information that you obtain through the Site or through an eBay-related communication or eBay-facilitated transaction, eBay hereby grants to you a license to use such information only for: (a) eBay-related communications that are not unsolicited commercial messages, (b) using co-branded services offered through eBay (e.g. escrow, insurance, shipping and fraud complaints), and (c) any other purpose that such user expressly opts into after adequate disclosure of the purpose(s). In all cases, you must give users an opportunity to remove themselves from your database and a chance to review what information you have collected about them. In addition, under no circumstances, except as defined in this Section, can you disclose personally identifiable information about another user to any third party without our consent and the consent of such other user after adequate disclosure. Note that law enforcement personnel, VeRO program participants, and other rights holders are given different rights with respect to information they access.
eBay and our users do not tolerate spam. Therefore, without limiting the foregoing, you are not licensed to add an eBay user—even a user who has purchased an auction item from you-to your mail list (email or physical mail) without their express consent after adequate disclosure.
-----------------------------
That said, I'll keep dialing when I see auctions by this thread's originator, who definitely should know better. Better safe than sorry.
- Pareau
~emphasis added~
[ edited by pareau on Sep 24, 2000 08:21 AM ]
posted on September 24, 2000 08:48:34 AM new
There is a BIG seller in my catagory of tools who sell a huge number of $1.00 no reserve auctions and obviously don't care if they make money on them or not. WHY? - Because they have a large brick and morter business
and they can afford the loss in order to compile the sort of data list you are speaking about. However they used it to spam all of us with invitations to their own auction site which is supposedly available to everyone but in fact is about 98% their own items. When I complained to eBay about it I got the standard -"We told them not to do that."
The way they really shot them selves in the foot was that they set up their mailserver so that every "remove" e-mail they got was auto forwarded to EVERYONE on their mail list. I was getting 60 to 100 removes every day for a week. They alienated so many the list was a waste of time. It will take years to live down that one.
posted on September 25, 2000 10:26:28 AM newpareau - thanks for your post - this was the sort of information I was trying to elicit - trying to find out if people do it, and if they are allowed to do it, which you have pointed out very well that they are not.
You say, I am really surprised and alarmed that the originator of this thread posted this question. -- why? I think it's a topic that needs to be discussed. I don't think eBay users necessarily know that they have a right not to have their personal data resold. I'm only somewhat suprised that auctions are deliberately staged in order to harvest personal data. Since it is against the user agreement, I think there should be a VERO-like omsbuds-person to stop this sort of thing from happening.
Does Andale pledge to keep your customer's data private? Does AW? heck, does PayPal? We need to be talking about this, not hiding our heads in the sand.
---------------------------
You also say, I'll keep dialing when I see auctions by this thread's originator, who definitely should know better. - As I said in my original post, I wouldn't do it even if I knew how to. You owe me an apology.
posted on September 25, 2000 10:33:43 AM new
No way!!!
I use the information to get them their stuff and sometimes let them know if something might be of interest that I have on a newer auction. That's it and that seems to be just about right.
posted on September 25, 2000 10:50:14 AM new
I would never sell customer data. The little cash I might receive would not be worth the loss in customer confidence and trust.
OTOH, since you brought up the topic of third party services and how they use that data...
Customers choose to sign up for PayPal. I have never solicited someone to join. Therefore, they make the choice to have their information available to PayPal.
As far as Andale and such, I think it's a bit different because the buyer may feel "forced" to hand over their info, especially for some sellers that must have the information submitted into their Andale service. I could see an instance where they could go out of business and pull a number like that other company (the one partially owned by Disney) that decided to sell customer data and credit card numbers.
What really bothers me, though, is the use of free secured pages some sellers use. You sign up for the service and get a page where customers can enter their credit card data securely. Now the sites that offer these services provide no information on how they use that data, how long they keep it, etc.. Many sellers irresponsibly use these services and the consumer may be unaware that a "free" service is collecting their data.
Auction buying involves a great deal of trust. With all the bad press and investigations going on, someone takes a chance buying. Feedback doesn't always do a good job, because we have countless instances of high feedback sellers screwing people. With sellers desiring some level of anonymity, buyers really do not know who they are buying from until after the transaction. Some do, but not many of us provide our full name, business name, address, phone, business credentials, all in the listing. So the only gauge a buyer has to judge a seller is a gut feeling and feedback (which is not always a good gauge). So to violate the initial trust it took to even engage in the transaction by selling that customer data, IMO, is awful. It's like anything for a buck.
posted on September 26, 2000 09:13:45 AM new
dave,
I don't understand this gambit. You could have found that information yourself, as I did, in under a minute. I found the thread premise disingenuous at best, suggestive at worst, and generally irresponsible and noncontributing.
"We" have been discussing privacy-related issues here at AW for months now, on various threads. Perhaps you haven't seen them, but they're there in the EO, if you look. And all legitimate sites have privacy policies that describe what information they capture and what they do with it under what circumstances. They bear reading. Since you don't appear familiar with those, either, here are links to Andale's http://www.andale.com/corp/us/privacy.html and AW's http://www.auctionwatch.com/privacy.html. I'll leave you to look up PayPal yourself.
I'll buy from whom I choose, on the merits as I see fit, and owe you no apology for saying I would not buy from you. If it's any comfort to you, I'll keep dialing when I see your threads, too.
posted on September 26, 2000 12:23:00 PM new
pareau -
It's quite easy to track sale of my name ... all I have to do is vary it a bit.
Online, I use a different email address for each place I have to use one. If it gets spammed or sold, I know.
By mail, I can vary the address enough to spot resellers, and they are informed that they are permanently off my list of companies to do business with.
posted on September 26, 2000 12:45:29 PM new"By entering into our User Agreement, you agree that, with respect to other user's personally identifiable information that you obtain through the Site or through an eBay-related communication or eBay-facilitated transaction, eBay hereby grants to you a license to use such information only for..."
Ebay has to grant me a license to use information that the customer gave me in an eBay facilitated transaction??
So if a customer initially contacts me through an eBay auction, Ebay owns the rights to all of my future communication with that person?
I guess so, since I agreed to the User Agreement.
And I'm not saying that I would sell the info, but it just bothers me that eBay claims ownership to it.
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All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed.
posted on September 26, 2000 01:37:56 PM new
No, I never did consider that and would never do it if the opportunity came up. I don't think my customers would appreciate it. If it happened to me as a buyer, I would be upset with the seller.
Sometime back a person emailed me requesting info on a eBay buyer because they were a seller on an auction and lost contact with the buyer. (The seller gleamed my info from the buyer's feedback.)
I explained that I don't share info without permission. I contacted the buyer, relayed the message and requested permission to share info.
It was in the up and up (I checked it out through eBay search), but would not have given the info without the permission.
