eBay Anonymizes Buyer Email Addresses

eBay is anonymizing buyer email addresses, a reader told us this week. Typically eBay provides a buyer's email address on the Order Details page - although the address is available to the seller only after the listing has ended with a sale.  

However, the reader forwarded us a screenshot this week showing eBay anonymized the email address of a user who had made a purchase from him.

The seller believes the anonymized email address is transaction-specific and subject to inspection by eBay. The screenshot shows the following message that displays if you click on an icon next to the anonymized email address:

"Your messages will be sent to the email address of the buyer. We scan messages to protect against fraudulent or suspicious activity or violations of eBay's User Agreement or eBay's policies." 

The seller said it would make a big difference in off-eBay platform contacting and sales. "I only wonder why it took them so long, the technology has been around quite a while," he said, noting that's how Craigslist handles contact information.

We're unable to find an announcement from eBay or any posts from sellers discussing a change. As recently as December, users discussed eBay's practice of sharing buyer email addresses with sellers. 

But we did find this help page where eBay states the following: 

Does eBay share personal email addresses?

In the majority of cases, we don't share buyers' personal email addresses. We replace email addresses with aliases for buyers and sellers to hide personal contact information. When you communicate, your email appears like 63ae59ac280fe0fa69@ members.ebay.com and is sent through our secure platform.

It appears right above a FAQ titled, "What can I do about a member who's threatening me?"