Revised 13 August 2008

From: Philip Cohen

To: pierre@ebay.com

Cc: invite@survey.ebay.com

Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 1:36 PM

Subject: Another message from a simple eBay user

I am in receipt of eBay's email dated 2 August inviting me to participate in a short survey seeking comment on recent changes made to eBay. Unfortunately, again, I found some of the survey questions ambiguous and confusing and so I stopped half way through (but I am retired from work now and maybe I am just getting a bit slow upstairs). However, that eBay would launch such a survey after the fact indicates to me that you have indeed done damage to yourself in the marketplace with a number of your recent changes. You certainly have damaged yourself from my perspective.

http://survey.ebay.com/survey/ebay/eby08040?list=2&source=Uk8VjXOIAE

I accept that, as a publicly listed company, eBay's every action will be purposed towards improving eBay's bottom line and we consumers have to understand that if at any time there appears to be some benefit to us, that will be purely coincidental. And that is a strange business strategy because unless my commercial logic is seriously flawed, in the final analysis, eBay needs us more than most of us need eBay.

However, without wishing to (once again) appear impertinent could I again tell you what is so obviously wrong with some of the, frankly stupid, decisions made by your management team in recent times:

1. Stop treating your users (both buyers and sellers) as though they are a pack of disposable idiots. In particular, stop making absurdly disingenuous statements that only serve to indicate that your management team is even more stupid than you apparently think your users are:

(If you are interested, some classic examples of eBay's disingenuous statements are summarized at:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=
23458&sid=90d854e1c4ba29b77055b72a425a3fd9)

(And even if we users are as stupid as your management team apparently thinks we are, then I would refer you to the text of an old 'Snake' cartoon strip by Allan Salisbury,

Q: 'Oh, great spirit, what is the lesson for today?'
A: 'Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups!')

2. Get rid of all forms of absolute anonymity of bidding (ie, 'Bidder N'; 'User ID kept private') so that genuine buyers can again have the opportunity to watch for and thereby protect themselves from at least any blatant shill bidding; do that before you do any more damage to yourself in Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines. (Then you probably won't have to waste your money resorting to self-promoting TV advertising.) And, please, don't let me hear any more of that disingenuous nonsense about SMI being introduced to stop fraudulent SCOs: that problem was effectively solved with the blocking of access to users' direct email addresses. The fact is, the non-bidder-specific, absolutely anonymous alias ('Bidder N') in effect aids and abets blatant shill bidders by making any such shill bidding 'disappear' and serves no other purpose than to deceive the genuine bidder. The whole bidding process, rather than being 'open and transparent' as it used to be, is now 'closed and opaque'. For buyers in particular, eBay is no longer 'a safe and fun place to trade.'
(If you are interested, a detailed argument against absolute anonymity of bidding at:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?
t=23355&sid=90d854e1c4ba29b77055b72a425a3fd9)

3. If you have any more thoughts about 'exclusive dealing' for PayPal, erase them, and don't waste any more of your money on such abysmal legal advice as that which you apparently received prior to your naive attempt to apply 'exclusive dealing' for PayPal in Australia. And, don't try it on anywhere else; you don't need any more egg on your face: this is the year 2008 not the 'Robber Baron' era of the 1870s.

4. I doubt that any seller has a problem offering PayPal for international sales, but you should also cease the disingenuous 'back door' enforcing of PayPal on sellers for all sales. (I hope that the various government regulators will have more to say about that abuse of your market power in the not to distant future.)

5. By all means 'fix' the feedback system to stop unscrupulous sellers from retaliating against justifiably dissatisfied buyers, but frankly your current solution is a joke and now exposes sellers to blackmail by unscrupulous or unreasonable buyers. You should bring back a sensible balance between buyer and seller; get rid of the nonsensical and incomprehensible mathematical formula: has your management team no understanding of the 'KISS' principle?

6. Now that you are sensing users' IP addresses, give your programmers something useful to do: develop a system that will actively filter auctions for suspicious patterns of (shill) bidding (and also 'validate' all users). (But, I still want to be able to see for myself that any blatant shill bidding'now hidden from view' is being controlled, because frankly, I would not trust your current management team as far as I could kick it.)

(If you are interested, some shill detecting algorithms by Jarrod Trevathan and Wayne Read from James Cook University, Australia, at:)

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61.7728

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61.7072

7. I notice that your programmers are currently fiddling with what appears to be cosmetic changes to the individual auction dialogue page, and I accept that the application of good principles of layout and design are desirable, but could I suggest that instead of fiddling with cosmetics you should first make changes such as those previously suggested that have more to do with function than with form.
(Previously suggested functional improvements at:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498837#6498837)

Maybe it is your intention to "kill off" the auction form of selling on eBay: who knows? However, I do know that the less open and transparent you make your auction process the more likely it is that government will ultimately declare that you are indeed an 'auctioneer''which, of course, is what you have always been! And, won't that open a can of worms!

But then what would I know about anything: I'm only a simple eBay user.

Philip Cohen, , Australia