eBay 2005 Annual Report Download - page 9

Marketplaces Services
Trust and Safety Programs
We have developed a number of programs on our eBay platform, including our Feedback Forum,
SafeHarbor
TM
Program and eBay Standard Purchase Protection Program, to make eBay users more
comfortable dealing with unknown trading partners and completing commerce transactions on the Internet.
Feedback Forum: eBay's Feedback Forum encourages each user to provide comments on other eBay
users with whom he or she trades and lets every user view other users' profiles, which include feedback ratings
and comments by other users. Every registered eBay user has a feedback profile that may contain
compliments, criticisms and other comments by users who have conducted business with such person. The
Feedback Forum requires feedback to be related to specific transactions and provides an easy tool for users to
match specific transactions with the user names of their trading partners. This information is recorded in a
profile that includes a feedback rating for the person with feedback sorted according to whether it was given
over the past month, six months, or twelve months. Users who develop positive reputations have color-coded
star symbols displayed next to their user name to indicate the number of positive feedback ratings they have
received. Before bidding on items listed for sale, eBay users are encouraged to review a seller's feedback
profile to check his or her reputation within the eBay community.
The terms of eBay's user agreement prohibit actions that would undermine the integrity of the Feedback
Forum, such as a user leaving positive feedback about himself or herself through multiple accounts or leaving
multiple negative feedback for others through multiple accounts. The Feedback Forum has several automated
features designed to detect and prevent some forms of abuse. Users who receive a sufficiently negative net
feedback rating have their registrations suspended and are unable to bid on or list items for sale. We believe
our Feedback Forum is useful in overcoming initial user hesitancy when trading over the Internet, as it reduces
the anonymity and uncertainty of dealing with an unknown trading partner.
SafeHarbor Program: In addition to the Feedback Forum, we offer the SafeHarbor program, which
provides guidelines for trading, provides information to resolve user disputes and responds to reports of misuse
of the eBay service. eBay's SafeHarbor staff investigates users' complaints of possible misuse of the eBay
service and takes appropriate action, including issuing warnings to users, ending and removing listings, or
suspending users from bidding on or listing items for sale. Some of the complaints the SafeHarbor staff
investigates include various forms of bid manipulation, malicious posting of negative feedback and posting of
illegal items for sale. The SafeHarbor group is organized into three areas: Investigations, Fraud Prevention and
Community Watch. The Investigations team investigates reported trading infractions and misuse of the eBay
service. The Fraud Prevention team provides information to assist users with disputes over the quality of the
goods sold or potentially fraudulent transactions. When we receive an officially filed, written claim of fraud
from a user, we will generally suspend the offending user from the eBay service or take other appropriate
action. The Community Watch team investigates the listing of illegal, infringing or inappropriate items on the
eBay Marketplaces sites and violations of certain of our policies. When we receive a valid written notice of
claimed infringement of intellectual property rights by the owner of intellectual property, we remove the
offending listing. Users who repeatedly infringe intellectual property rights are suspended. In addition, we have
increased the number of people reviewing potentially illegal items and have developed software programs that
scan new listings for keywords that may indicate illegal, infringing, or inappropriate items. Our trust and safety
initiatives, including user identity verification, buyer protection, authentication, and other proactive anti-fraud
efforts are key elements of our effort to make the eBay platform a safer place to trade.
eBay Standard Purchase Protection Program: Disputes over items not received, or items received but
where significantly not as described in the listing, can usually be resolved by direct communication between
buyers and sellers. To help transaction partners reach a resolution, eBay offers an online process through
which buyers and sellers can communicate with each other. If, upon completion of this process, the buyer still
has not resolved the issue, the buyer has the opportunity to submit a claim. Upon submission of a claim, which
is an online process, eBay's Trust and Safety team is alerted about the transaction. If the buyer closes the
dispute with this option and the transaction is eligible, then the buyer may file a claim under eBay's Standard
Purchase Protection Program, through which the buyer may be reimbursed up to $200 (minus a $25
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