InformationWeek

July 17, 2000

Privacy Evaluation: ebay

By Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).

EBay is the most popular online auction site. The eight-page privacy policy is fairly comprehensive and includes what sort of information is collected and how it will be used. There's even an appendix that outlines the information collected and who has access to it.

Seals
Trust-e
BBBOnline

Information Collection

Type of Information	Collected?
Cookies	Session, navigation tracking, ad exposure
Anonymous information	Yes, mostly through cookies
Personal information	Yes, including name, E-mail, address, credit-card information
IP address	Yes
Referrer	Yes
Ad view and usage	Yes

Information Sharing

Information Type	Shared?
Name, E-mail, etc.	Used, shared with partners
Site usage	Used, shared with partners and advertisers
Demographics	Used, shared with partners and advertisers
Aggregate information	Shared with partners and advertisers

Privacy Policy Features

Feature	Implemented?
Notice	Yes
Security	Secure Sockets Layer information collection
Options	Fairly extensive set of preferences for mailings that you wish to be excluded from. Not all information sharing can be opted out of. Preferences page is not available unless you are a registered user.
Access	Ability to update via form or contact person at vendor. Can't tell if it can be deleted.