This policy tells you about how we use and protect your personal information. To see a summary of this policy, and for more information to answer your privacy concerns, please go to our Privacy Central page. We are a TRUSTe licensee. If we do not respond to your question, please contact TRUSTe. The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through the websites covered by this policy. It does not cover information that may be collected through software downloaded from these sites.
Contents
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Scope
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Collection
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Marketing
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Use
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Our Disclosure of Your Information
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Information You Share on eBay
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Using Information from eBay
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Cookies
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No Spam, Spyware or Spoofing
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Account Protection
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Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information
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Security
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Third Parties
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General
Scope
This Privacy Policy describes how we handle your personal information for our services on the eBay websites. It applies generally to the eBay.com website and content and other related websites where this policy appears in the footer of the page. Some eBay-branded websites or websites we operate may be governed by separate privacy policies. The policy that applies on any of our domains or subdomains is always the policy that appears in the footer of each website.
Our subsidiaries’ and joint ventures’ privacy practices are similar to those described in this Privacy Policy. Subject to the requirements of applicable law, we strive to provide a consistent set of privacy practices throughout the global eBay trading community. By accepting the Privacy Policy and the User Agreement in registration, you expressly consent to our collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy is effective upon acceptance for new users and is otherwise effective on August 13, 2008.
Collection
You can browse our sites without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself. Once you give us your personal information, you are not anonymous to us. If you choose to provide us with personal information, you consent to the transfer and storage of that information on our servers located in the United States.
We may collect and store the following personal information:
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email address, physical contact information, and (depending on the service used) sometimes financial information, such as credit card or bank account numbers;
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transactional information based on your activities on the sites (such as bidding, buying, selling, item and content you generate or that relates to your account);
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shipping, billing and other information you provide to purchase or ship an item;
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community discussions, chats, dispute resolution, correspondence through our sites, and correspondence sent to us;
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other information from your interaction with our sites, services, content and advertising, including computer and connection information, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the sites, ad data, IP address and standard web log information;
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additional information we ask you to submit to authenticate yourself or if we believe you are violating site policies (for example, we may ask you to send us an ID or bill to verify your address, or to answer additional questions online to help verify your identity or ownership of an item you list);
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information from other companies, such as demographic and navigation data; and
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other supplemental information from third parties (for example, if you incur a debt to eBay, we will generally conduct a credit check by obtaining additional information about you from a credit bureau, as permitted by law).
Marketing
We don't sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent. We may combine your information with information we collect from other companies and use it to improve and personalize our services, content and advertising. If you don't wish to receive marketing communications from us or participate in our ad-customization programs, simply indicate your preference in My eBay or by following the directions provided with the communication or advertisement.
Use
Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customized experience. You agree that we may use your personal information to:
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provide the services and customer support you request;
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resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;
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prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and enforce our User Agreement;
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customize, measure and improve our services, content and advertising;
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tell you about our services and those of our corporate family, targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers based on your communication preferences; and
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compare information for accuracy, and verify it with third parties.
Our Disclosure of Your Information
We may disclose personal information to respond to legal requirements, enforce our policies, respond to claims that a listing or other content violates the rights of others, or protect anyone's rights, property, or safety. Such information will be disclosed in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
We may also share your personal information with:
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Members of the eBay Inc. corporate family—like PayPal, Skype or Shopping.com—to provide joint content and services (like registration, transactions and customer support), to help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts and violations of our policies, and to guide decisions about their products, services and communications. Members of our corporate family will use this information to send you marketing communications only if you’ve requested their services.
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Service providers under contract who help with our business operations (such as fraud investigations, bill collection, affiliate and rewards programs and co-branded credit cards).
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Other third parties to whom you explicitly ask us to send your information (or about whom you are otherwise explicitly notified and consent to when using a specific service).
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Law enforcement or other governmental officials, in response to a verified request relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal activity. In such events, we will disclose information relevant to the investigation, such as name, city, state, zip code, telephone number, email address, User ID history, IP address, fraud complaints, and bidding and listing history.
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eBay VeRO Program participants under confidentiality agreement, as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity. In such events, we will disclose name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email address and company name.
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Other business entities, should we plan to merge with or be acquired by that business entity. (Should such a combination occur, we will require that the new combined entity follow this privacy policy with respect to your personal information. If your personal information will be used contrary to this policy, you will receive prior notice.)
Without limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and our ability to keep the community free from bad actors, we will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties without a subpoena, court order or substantially similar legal procedure, except when we believe in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss or to report suspected illegal activity.
Information You Share on eBay
Your User ID is displayed throughout eBay (and so available to the public), and is connected to all of your eBay activity. Other people can see your bids, purchases, items for sale, storefronts, feedback, ratings and associated comments. Notices sent to other community members about suspicious activity and policy violations on our sites refer to User IDs and specific items. So if you associate your name with your User ID, the people to whom you have revealed your name will be able to personally identify your eBay activities.
If you access our sites from a shared computer or a computer in an internet café, certain information about you, such as your User ID, activity or reminders from eBay, may also be visible to other individuals who use the computer after you.
Using Information from eBay
eBay enables you to share personal and financial information to complete transactions. We encourage you to disclose your privacy practices and respect the privacy of other users. We cannot guarantee the privacy or security of your information and therefore we encourage you to evaluate the privacy and security policies of your trading partner before entering into a transaction and choosing to share your information. To help protect your privacy, we allow only limited access to other users' contact, shipping and financial information to facilitate your transactions. When users are involved in a transaction, they may have access to each other's name, User ID, email address and other contact and shipping information. In all cases, you must give other users a chance to remove themselves from your database and a chance to review what information you have collected about them.
You agree to use user information only for:
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eBay transaction-related purposes that are not unsolicited commercial messages;
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using services offered through eBay (e.g. escrow, insurance, shipping and fraud complaints), or
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other purposes that a user expressly chooses.
Cookies
We use "cookies" (small files placed on your hard drive) on certain of our pages to help analyze our web page flow; customize our services, content and advertising; measure promotional effectiveness, and promote trust and safety. For more information about why we use cookies, see Cookies, Web Beacons, and Your Privacy.
A few important things you should know about cookies are that:
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We offer certain features that are available only through the use of cookies.
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We use cookies to help identify you and maintain your signed-in status.
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Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session.
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You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although doing so may interfere with your use of some of our sites or services.
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You may encounter cookies from third parties on certain pages of the sites that we do not control. (For example, if you view a web page created by another user, there may be a cookie placed by that web page.)
No Spam, Spyware or Spoofing
We and our users do not tolerate spam. Make sure to set your eBay notification preferences so we communicate to you as you prefer. You are not licensed to add other eBay users, even a user who has purchased an item from you, to your mailing list (email or physical mail) without their express consent. To report eBay-related spam or spoof emails to eBay, please forward the email to spam@ebay.com or spoof@ebay.com. You may not use our communication tools to send spam or otherwise send content that would violate our User Agreement. We automatically scan and may manually filter messages to check for spam, viruses, phishing attacks and other malicious activity or illegal or prohibited content, but we do not permanently store messages sent through these tools. If you send an email to an email address that is not registered in our community (via Refer-a-Friend or other tools), we do not permanently store that email or use that email address for any marketing purpose. We do not rent or sell these email addresses.
Account Protection
Your password is the key to your account. Use unique numbers, letters and special characters, and do not disclose your eBay password to anyone. If you do share your password or your personal information with others, remember that you are responsible for all actions taken in the name of your account. If you lose control of your password, you may lose substantial control over your personal information and may be subject to legally binding actions taken on your behalf. Therefore, if your password has been compromised for any reason, you should immediately notify eBay and change your password.
Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information
You can see, review and change most of your personal information by signing on to eBay. Generally, we will not manually modify your personal information because it is very difficult to verify your identity remotely. You must promptly update your personal information if it changes or is inaccurate. Once you make a public posting, you may not be able to change or remove it. Upon your request, we will close your account and remove your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based on your account activity and in accordance with applicable law. We do retain personal information from closed accounts to comply with law, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our eBay User Agreement, and take other actions otherwise permitted by law.
Security
Your information is stored on our servers located in the United States. We treat data as an asset that must be protected and use lots of tools (encryption, passwords, physical security, etc.) to protect your personal information against unauthorized access and disclosure. However, as you probably know, third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications, and other users may abuse or misuse your personal information that they collect from the site. Therefore, although we work very hard to protect your privacy, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information or private communications will always remain private.
Third Parties
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this document addresses only the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. If you disclose your information to others, whether they are bidders, buyers or sellers on our sites or other sites throughout the internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to them. eBay does not control the privacy policies of third parties, and you are subject to the privacy policies of those third parties where applicable. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.
General
We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amended terms on this site. All amended terms automatically take effect 30 days after they are initially posted on the site. In addition, we will notify you through the eBay Message Center. If your questions are not answered online, you may write to us at: eBay Inc. Attn: Legal - Global Privacy Practices, 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, California 95125, or using the Contact Us form.
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