The following Privacy Policy shall apply to users registering on or after 10 July 2008, as from the date of registration. For users who registered prior to 10 July 2008, the Privacy Policy shall apply as from 13 August 2008. You can find the old Privacy Policy here.
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.
Contents
Scope
This Privacy Policy describes how we handle your personal information for our services on the eBay websites. It applies generally to the eBay.co.uk. 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', affiliates’ 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 13 August 2008.
Controlling and Processing Parties
When you use the eBay services, you agree that:
eBay Europe S.à r.l., 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg, and eBay International AG, Helvetiastrasse 15/17, 3005 Bern, may process your personal data. They may transfer your personal data to eBay Inc., 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125, USA.
eBay Inc., eBay Europe S.à r.l. and eBay International AG process your personal information to deliver the services eBay provides under the User Agreement and within the framework and according to the principles laid down in this Privacy Policy.
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:
email address, physical contact information, and (depending on the service used) sometimes financial information, such as credit card or bank account numbers;
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);
shipping, billing and other information you provide to purchase or ship an item;
community discussions, chats, dispute resolution, feedback, correspondence through our sites, and correspondence sent to us;
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;
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);
information from other companies, such as demographic and navigation data; and
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; or if the information you provide cannot be verified, we may ask you to send us additional information, such as your driver’s licence, credit card statement, or a recent utility bill or other information confirming your address, or to answer additional questions online to help verify your information).
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 on other users and information we collect from other companies and use it to improve and personalise our services, content and advertising. If you don't wish to receive marketing communications from us or participate in our ad-customisation programs, simply indicate your preference via the “Preferences” page in My eBay (or similar account status page) 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 customised experience. You agree that we may use your personal information to:
provide the services and customer support you request;
resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;
prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and enforce our User Agreement;
customise, measure and improve our services, content and advertising;
tell you about our services and those of our corporate family, targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers based on your communication preferences; and
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 infringes the rights of others, or protect anyone's rights, property, or safety.
We may also share your personal information with:
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.
Service providers under contract who help with our business operations (such as fraud investigations, bill collection, affiliate and rewards programs and customer support).
Other eBay users, whether located within the United Kingdom or abroad. For example, where you are involved in a transaction with another user, the other user may view your email address and obtain your contact information and postal address to help complete the transaction.
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).
Law enforcement agencies, other governmental agencies or third parties in response to a request for information (such as a Section 29 (3) Data Protection Act 1998 form) relating to a criminal investigation, alleged illegal activity or any other activity that may expose us, you or any other eBay user to legal liability. The personal information we disclose may include your User ID and User ID history, name, city, county, telephone number, email address, fraud complaints and bidding and listing history or anything else that we deem relevant.
eBay VeRO Programme participants in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity, as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate, either under confidentiality agreement or as required by law. In such circumstances, we may disclose name, street address, city, county, postcode, country, phone number, email address and company name.
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 those who attempt to carry out fraudulent or illegal activities on the site, we will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties without a 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, shop fronts, feedback, ratings and associated comments. Notices sent to other community members about suspicious activity and policy breaches 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 are a business seller, your contact details (such as name and geographical address) may be visible on the View Item page, as you indicate in your business preferences on My eBay.
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 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 comply with data protection laws, and 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:
eBay transaction-related purposes that are not unsolicited commercial messages;
using services offered through eBay (e.g. escrow, postage and fraud complaints), or
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 analyse our web page flow; customise 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:
We offer certain features that are available only through the use of cookies.
We use cookies to help identify you and maintain your signed-in status.
Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session.
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.
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 communication 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 report it to us. You may not use our communication tools to send spam or otherwise send content that would breach 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 to Customer Service, 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 unauthorised 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. In addition, we will notify you through the eBay Message Centre or via email at the address you provide in My eBay. If our help pages do not answer the questions you may have related to the Privacy Policy, you can write to the Data Controller within the European Union: eBay Europe S.à r.l. – Privacy Policy Requests, 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg, or you may contact eBay Customer Support.
Our Previous Privacy Policy
Welcome to the privacy policy (the "Privacy Policy") for the http://www.ebay.co.uk. website, sub-domains of that website (which include, without limitation, http://www.ebayexpress.co.uk and http://www.ebaymotors.co.uk) and all other eBay branded websites provided for U.K. users (together, the "Site").
Contents
Scope
This Privacy Policy describes how eBay International A.G ("we", "us" or "our") collects, stores, uses and discloses your personal information in connection with the performance of the services that are made available to you through the Site.
Other eBay websites worldwide operate under similar privacy practices and, subject to the requirements of applicable local law, we strive to provide a consistent set of privacy practices throughout the global eBay trading community.
By accepting the User Agreement during the process for registering an eBay account or by using the Site, you expressly consent to the collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information by eBay International A.G. as described in this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy is valid from 1 March 2007 and is effective upon acceptance for new users.
Collection and Storage
You can browse the Site without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself. However, once you give us your personal information, you are no longer anonymous to us.
If you choose to provide us with personal information, you expressly consent to us transferring that information to, and storing it on, servers located in the United States. As part of this process we may transfer your personal information to eBay Inc. The laws on holding personal data in the United States may be less stringent than the laws applicable to the United Kingdom, but we will transfer and store your information in a safe, confidential and secure environment.
We may collect and store the following personal information about you:
email address, physical address, telephone number and other contact information, and (depending on the service used) sometimes financial information, such as credit card or bank account details;
transactional information based on your activities on the Site (such as information on your bidding, buying and selling activities, item descriptions and other content you generate or information that relates to your account);
postage, billing and other information you provide to purchase or post an item;
community discussions, chats, dispute resolution, correspondence through the Site, correspondence sent to us and feedback;
computer sign-on data, statistics on page views, information and statistics on traffic to and from the Site (including the URL you just came from and the URL you go to next, whether they are URLs on the Site or not), advertising data, IP address, browser information and standard web log information; and
supplemental information from third parties (for example: (a) if you incur a debt to us, we will generally conduct a credit check by obtaining additional information about you from a credit reference agency, as permitted by law; (b) if the information you provide cannot be verified, we may ask you to send us additional information (such as a certified copy of your driver's licence, credit card statement, and/or a recent utility bill or other information confirming your address), or to answer additional questions to help verify your information.); (c) if you register to use eBay's services on a third party website, or use a third party website providing a service for eBay, or use a website that facilitates your activity on eBay, that website may provide personal information about you and your transactions back to eBay.
Marketing by Third Parties
We don't sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent. However, we may aggregate your personal information with information on other users and information we collect from other companies (such as demographic data) and disclose such aggregated, non personal information to advertisers and other third parties.
Use by eBay
Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customised experience.
We may use your personal information to:
provide the services and customer support you request;
resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;
prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and enforce the User Agreement;
customise, measure, and improve our services and the Site's content and layout;
tell you about our existing products and services, changes to our existing products and services, new products and services and promotional offers based on your notification preferences; and
compare information for accuracy and verify it with third parties.
If you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us, we encourage you to amend your notification preferences via the "Preferences" page in My eBay. You may make changes to your notification preferences at any time. Please note that you cannot opt out of receiving administrative information that you need to know in order for us to provide you with our services.
Our Disclosure of Your Information
We may disclose your personal information to:
other eBay users, whether located within the United Kingdom or abroad. For example, where you are involved in a transaction with another user, the other user may view your email address and obtain your contact information and postal address to help complete the transaction;
eBay Europe S.à r.l and eBay Inc. for the purpose of providing the eBay services;
our parent companies, subsidiaries and other companies within the eBay Inc. group to help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts;
our parent companies, subsidiaries, and other companies within the eBay Inc. group of companies to provide joint services;
service providers under contract who provide elements of our services, provide separate services that are complimentary to your use of the Site or otherwise help with our business operations (such as fraud investigations, bill collection, affiliate and rewards programmes and marketing activities);
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;
law enforcement agencies, other governmental agencies or third parties in response to a request for information (such as a Section 29 (3) Data Protection Act 1998 form) relating to a criminal investigation, alleged illegal activity or any other activity that may expose us, you or any other eBay user to legal liability. The personal information we disclose may include your User ID and User ID history, name, city, county, telephone number, email address, fraud complaints and bidding and listing history or anything else that we deem relevant;
VeRO Programme participants under confidentiality agreements, as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, or any other unlawful activity. The personal information we disclose may include your User ID, name, street address, city, county, post code, country, telephone number, email address and company name; and
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 Privacy 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 eBay users who attempt to carry out fraudulent or illegal activities on the Site, we will not otherwise disclose your personal information to other eBay users or third parties without a court order (or in circumstances where we are under a substantially similar legal obligation), except when we believe in good faith that the disclosure of such information is necessary to prevent imminent physical harm, property damage or financial loss or to report or put a stop to suspected illegal activity.
Data Controller
eBay International AG and eBay Europe S.à r.l are jointly the data controller with regard to the processing of eBay users' personal information in the context of registration of new users and billing. However, eBay International AG is the sole data controller with regard to any other processing of eBay users' personal information.
User IDs and eBay Activities
Your User ID is displayed throughout the Site and is therefore available to the public. All of your activities on the Site will be traceable to your User ID. Other people may see your bids, items that you have purchased in the past, items for sale, shop fronts, feedback ratings and associated comments, questions you have asked and so on. Notices are sent to other community members regarding suspicious activity and policy breaches on the Site and refer to User IDs and specific items. Therefore, 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.
When you re-visit the Site from a computer that you have used to access the Site previously, certain information about you may be visible before you log in, such as your User ID or information relating to your eBay activities (for example, details of items that you are bidding on or "watching"). In addition, reminders from eBay may also be visible. Therefore, if you access the Site from a shared computer or a computer in an internet café, such information and reminders may also be visible to other individuals who use the computer after you.
Cookies
We use "cookies" (small files placed on your computer’s hard drive) on certain pages of the Site to help analyse our web page flow, customise our services, 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:
we offer certain features that are only available through the use of cookies;
we use cookies to help identify you and maintain your signed-in status;
most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session;
you are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although doing so may interfere with your use of the Site; and
you may encounter cookies from third parties on certain pages of the Site 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.
Account Protection
Your eBay password is the key to your eBay account. Use unique numbers, letters, and special characters and do not disclose your 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, including actions that result in fees being charged to 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 us and change your password. Please visit the Safety Centre for further information on how to protect your eBay account and personal information.
Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information
You can see, review and change most of your personal information by logging into the Site and going to the "My Account" section of My eBay. You must promptly update your personal information if it changes or is inaccurate. Once you make a public posting (including in our chat rooms, other message areas or the feedback forum), you may not be able to change or remove it. Upon your request, we will close your account and remove your personal information from public 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 in order to comply with legal obligations, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce the User Agreement, and take other actions as permitted by law.
Security
We use standard industry practices, including encryption, passwords and physical security, to protect your personal information against unauthorised 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 third parties, whether they are bidders, buyers, or sellers on the Site or other websites throughout the Internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of your information. We do not control the privacy practices of such third parties and we encourage you to read their privacy policies and ask questions before you disclose your personal information to them.
General
We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amended terms on the Site. All amended terms shall take effect automatically 30 days after they are initially posted on the Site. In addition, we will notify you in accordance with your notification preferences or by posting an announcement on our General Announcement Board.
To see a summary of this Privacy Policy, please go to the Privacy Overview page. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact eBay Customer Support.
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
