eBay Tells Court It Competes with Facebook Marketplace

by: Fruitylovesyou

From their commoners one might get a visual of floor to ceiling monitors with all our screens. ickbay

by: The End

No, I used to be able to help my customers with Care Tips for my product.
New people were always finding and buying my products on Ebay because they felt secure in knowing my product is made in America and I speak Clear English.
They would contact me through Ebay and we would discuss.....
It was a nice thing to look forward to during business hours....
It all went away.

by: pace306

eBay doesnt care if its users get married, move next door to each other, work for each other or run for governor - they ONLY care about "potentially loosing a sale that would be made offsite".

Of course thats a GOOD thing as any sale denied eBay is a win for the good guys - but this article isnt about making offsite sales - its about eBays fawning over the attention given to it and how it can pretend to be "the good guy".

by: toolguy

Hard to say anything nice about eBay community boards!

Being I'm on a life long ban.

If Yahoo had any sense at all they would bring back auctions, sellers would be knocking down their door. . .

by: Snapped

It’s not personal, it’s business.

That’s why eBay’s floundering though.  Because ‘personal’ was precisely what their ‘demographic’ foundation was - long before Facebook, et.al.  It worked because, until recent mass production impacts, ‘business’ has always been conducted - or not conducted - precisely that way; Peer to Peer, face to face, customer to customer, and often, friend to friend, often only because of that last one. Transparency leads to trust.  Or at least mutual if only begrudging respect in disagreement.

Just ask anybody in your ‘network’, Jamie.  Or are all those ‘business’ associations now just impersonal, expendable, of no concern to you?  Do they know that?  Should we?

Sure, eBay would just love to have all the PEOPLE that prop them up be reduced to metrics, logistics, algorithms, and all their ‘sales’ be hands free.  (Ignoring the fact that tangible is what defines what is offered for sale).  

And sure, they’ve eradicated ‘easy’ means to form human connections around shared commerce interests and issues, but their efforts are Swiss-cheesed at best.  So’s the ‘gagged’ defense by the way - law’s already written that will require them to disclose the dreaded ‘contact information’.  That point’s moot.

Meanwhile, eBay audaciously claims they are competing with FB marketplace.  How?  They threw away all those folks (and their wares - and their potential buyers) when they got all innovative with their foundation wrecking balls.  How do they now have a cause to cry ‘competition exemption!’ when that business demographic and the personal relationships that are endemic to it are declared unwanted?

As far as stifling communication attempts go, eBay has demonstrated convicted criminal experience in that arena.  That’s always been at the root of the world’s problems, sadly.  

In any event. Selling online via a venue that charges for it means the venue IS a ‘social networking service’, no matter how much it’s  disguised otherwise.  

Make eBay testify then as to what makes them ‘different’.  Make them put it on the record.  They don’t want your ‘community’ organic in their sterilized bot garages.  Make them make that clear, and then still try to attract those competing FB ‘listings’ after that.  

by: Rexford

"eBay is an online platform that brings buyers and sellers together to buy and sell goods, either through auctions or traditional purchase and sale transactions, eBay told the court."

It's the old "we're just a platform" verbiage that they pull out anytime they are in court or dealing with attorneys.  The company that have their hands so deep in your business that you want to scream "is just a platform".

by: Marie

You think you can network on Ebay like you can on Facebook?

by: Chicago48

I don't understand the purpose of this report.  How is this case effecting sellers?

by: CT Bay

I too am indefinitely banned from the community board. For “Ass”. The mods need rainbows and sunshine only. Anything else will see you removed. Getting around the ban is as simple as incognito mode. Probably why everyone posting has 0 feedback. Now I understand why everyone makes new accounts to post there, crappy mods.

by: flybuy

It is rich the government is pursuing Meta considering Meta is still full of ex-CIA and FBI spooks keen to censor speech as they did on Twitter before Elon Musk took over.
And Mark Zuckerberg desperately wants our government to block Tik Tok since younger and now older social media users are flocking there and away from Facebook and Instagram.
What would be more interesting is to see how many sellers stick with platforms where they have no control over how they accept payments.

by: pace306

"It's the old "we're just a platform" verbiage "

Hey, eBay hasnt said that lie in AGES - Im surprised that Jaime said it/let them say it!

Of course they know that no seller will sue them so they are safe - but you have to admire the c@jones on eBay for trying to pull that one (esp after the payments take over etc)

by: Snapped

@ Marie

“..like you can…”?  Mechanically, no, which of course you know.  Not anymore anyway.  But ‘like you can’ anywhere also on line, as in can it still be done?  Of course.  It’s built into the tool’s name: Network.

Although there’s a difference between the ‘missions’ of social media, and social networking, they use the same tools, and share some of the same elements.  ‘

‘Businesses’, like eBay (may) use tools of SM to facilitate SN, but SN can and does happen without them, and works around artificial (perhaps ill-advised) obstacles.  SM (like FB) can facilitate ‘business’, but that doesn’t diminish SN if it doesn’t do business.  

Incidentally, given how much eBay want’s to ‘distance’ themselves from any FB ‘involvements’, how are they addressing the fact they’ve established (practically transferred) so much of their ‘customer service’ there?  

Furthermore - if anybody needs some FCC ‘investigating’ regarding anti-trust shenanigans in squashing comms for unfair profit from trade, it’s eBay.  In both of their faces.

by: Whatever

funny these 2 greedy corporate bas(*&^ are duking it out. I've never sold one single thing on Facebook despite my 3,000 "friends" and barely have a presence on eBay anymore. So who cares???

by: BargainzBabylon

"If Yahoo had any sense at all they would bring back auctions, sellers would be knocking down their door. . ."

This is 2023.  

by: Rexford

"Meta is still full of ex-CIA and FBI spooks keen to censor speech as they did on Twitter before Elon Musk took over."

Say what? The things I read these days.  Lord have mercy!  And Elon Musk as the cherry on top of that statement.

by: ebayout

Is it useless to point out that you can sign in to eBay using FB?

by: ebayout

...on your iPhone.

by: Marie

For those that have been banned from the Ebay Community Boards.  That does not happen to you because of just one post that didn't follow the rules of the Community and yes there are published rules.  It is not like social media where you can say whatever you want, whenever you want.

Typically when a member gets banned from the Community they have had multiple warnings and a few forced vacations from the threads for some period of time.  Starting small and working to longer periods.

I agree that some of the rules for the community could use some improving.  I just thought I'd explain this a bit as some post as if it happened because of one post the moderators didn't like.

For anyone that wants to view the Community boards when they are banned.  You can do that, just don't sign into Ebay.  If you aren't signed it, you will be able to view the Community.

by: ebayout

@Marie...24 years, $750K sales,100% rating
I'm banned for a question, not a statement.
BUT...they gladly still accept my selling fees.
Can you spell hypocrite?

by: Marie

@ebayout

OK a question, quote, opinion, statement or any other word you may like to use to describe it.  What you post in the Community matters.  Your word choices matter.  

I'm NOT defending how they run things, I'm just stating what I know to be true about the subject.

The status of your selling or buying account has no bearing on your status in the Community Forums, nor should it.  The fees you pay don't have anything to do with it either.  There are enough bullies on the forums, that would add more if longer standing members could say just about anything they wanted without any sort of filter.