eBay customer? Check the Advertising Preferences!

[Karlston]

If you are an eBay customer, either as a seller or buyer, you may want to check the advertising preferences on the site if you have not done so in the past.

 

The marketplace eBay, just like Amazon and many other shopping related services on the Internet, displays advertisement to customers that browse the site. The company has partnerships with advertisers and may collect and share information while customers use services operated by eBay.

 

If you want to keep collected and shared data to a minimum, you need to check the advertising preferences on eBay and turn off anything there; all options are checked by default which means that data is collected and shared with partners.

 

 

First thing you need to do is open the GDPR page on eBay. You can use the link in the previous sentence or select My eBay > Summary > Account > Advertisement Preferences to go there manually if you prefer it that way.

 

The page lists seven opt-out options and the information that eBay may gather. According to eBay, it may collect the following data:

• Browser type and settings.
• Information about the operating system.
• Cookie data.
• Information about other identifiers "assigned to the device".
• The IP address.
• Information about user activity, e.g. visited web pages or used mobile apps.
• Geographic location.
•  

 

The advertising and related preference page lists seven opt-out options:

• Content selection, deliver and reporting -- eBay collects data about "what content was shown, how often or how long it was shown, when and where it was shown, and whether you took any action".
• Website improvements -- eBay measures, analyzes and reports on how eBay is used by customers, and how it can improve the site and services.
• Google advertising -- Google drops cookies on user devices and may collect information about the device and use on the site.
• Storing and accessing information on your devices -- eBay may store data on user devices related to advertising activity. The company may collect information about the computer or mobile device.
• Ad selection, delivery, and reporting -- eBay collects information about interests to "measure the effectiveness of advertisements".
• Personalizing advertising based on your behavior -- activity information is used to personalize advertisement.

 

Each option has an on/off toggle and a "show partners" link. A click on the latter displays all third-parties that eBay shares information with. Some list dozens of partners and sharing is enabled for all of them.

 

It is unclear if toggling "no" blocks sharing with partners; if you check the partner listing after toggling a preference to no, you will notice that all partner sharing options are still listed with the status "yes".

 

The changes apply to any eBay store once you make them.

 

Source: eBay customer? Check the Advertising Preferences! (gHacks - Martin Brinkmann)

 

Poster's note: Martin may have missed this... " This content and the following preferences only affect our customers in the European Economic Area (EEA). " That's also on the eBay Australia page.