Reader's advisory: Wired News has been unable to confirm some sources for a number of stories written by this author. If you have any information about sources cited in this article, please send an e-mail to sourceinfo[AT]wired.com.
Auction site eBay has apparently decided that users of its service who said no really meant yes.
So, in an attempt to "help" its users, the company has informed many of them, by e-mail, that their marketing preferences were automatically being changed.
According to the e-mail sent by eBay, negative "opt-out" responses during registration on whether the user wanted to receive news and marketing pitches by e-mail from eBay and its partners would now be changed to indicate that the user really wanted to receive those "valuable e-mail communications."
EBay spokesperson Kevin Pursglove said that the problem originated in October with a bug in eBay's system.
The bug caused the answer selections for marketing preferences to alternate between default "yes" and "no" answers, instead of eBay's standard "yes" default response.
Fearing that some users may have been confused by this glitch, eBay chose to change all preferences to yes, and then informed users that they had two weeks to reset their own preferences.
Pursglove said that eBay worked closely with TrustE, an Internet-based privacy advocacy association, to ensure that they handled the problem properly. TrustE could not be reached for immediate comment.
But many eBay users are furious over what they see as a blatant attempt to thwart their expressed desires not to receive any communications from the auction service.
"There was no 'error' in my registration," one disgruntled eBay user ranted in an e-mail to Wired News. "I intentionally opted out. Now I'm forced to opt out again."
"Nice way to get everyone 'in line with the rest of the eBay community.'"
The letter eBay sent to its users reads:
"Several times a month, eBay sends out valuable e-mail communications with news, offers and special events that help you buy and sell. Unfortunately, we have noticed that an error occurred during your registration process that prevented you from receiving these communications. Many of your Notification Preference defaults were set to 'no' rather than to 'yes,' which means that unlike other eBay members, you're not receiving these types of communications."
"We'd like to resolve this problem quickly and efficiently. Therefore, on 1/8/01, we returned all your Notification Preferences to the standard default of 'yes' to put you in line with the rest of the eBay community. However, we want you to choose your Notification Preferences rather than rely on our standard defaults and will therefore not include you in any communications until 1/23/01. This will provide you with some time to evaluate these choices and modify your Notification Preferences. You will, however, continue to receive certain administrative e-mails that are part of executing your eBay transactions."
Some recipients of the e-mail, while not thrilled with the company's missive, shrugged it off.
"At least they are giving a grace period before they start pelting you with mail, give you a chance to inform them that you really, really don't want their spam," said Nanette Veracruz, an eBay user.
"It's an inconvenience, but it's not something that would make me stop using the service."
Harvey Shapiro, a Manhattan lawyer specializing in Internet regulations and new media, said that eBay wasn't doing anything illegal so long as it abided by the "safe harbor" period they referred to in their e-mail to customers.
"If they have begun adding those people to their marketing list without waiting to hear from them, that would be a different matter. Then you could say it was a breach of contract. So far, I see this as a rather silly stunt on eBay's part, something that must have looked good to the guys in marketing.
Shapiro also pointed out that, since eBay claims that its registration process had a problem, the company had a "somewhat valid" reason to check to see if their users might have been confused.
"I suppose it's possible that there are some poor eBay users out there who are feeling left out and lonely because they aren't getting any mail."
Mark Henson, an eBay user and systems administrator at MacTech, said that he's decided never to give out his real e-mail address when signing up for any service again.
"There have been too many instances of companies changing your preferences, like AOL does on an annual basis, or changing their privacy policies, like Amazon did a few months back, or just disregarding what you say when you sign up. I'm now going to use a free e-mail account that I will never read, and a postal drop address service for package deliveries."
"And if the bullshit continues," Henson fumed, "I'll go back to the 'real world' to do my shopping. At least there, I'm not being followed all the time like I'm some sort of animal, some exotic species that needs to be tagged and tracked."
