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eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

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Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#41

Post by gpt5 »

BeetleB wrote: post #32
whyenot wrote: post #12

So scraping bots and “buy for me” bots are bad, but the incredibly annoying sniping bots are OK? That sure feels like a double standard.

I never understood why eBay set things up to enable sniping. Many years ago, there was an auction site called uBid. They had the sane rule: Bidding is open as long as there have been bids in the past 5 minutes. So the end date could be January 24th, 3pm, but if someone bids at 2:58pm, the deadline is extended to 3:05pm. And it keeps going. You know, like how auctions in the real world work.

Guessing here - but they are probably relying on game theory / auction theory. They have a built in "sniping bot" - by allowing you to type your highest price, and it will auto-bid for you until that price.

The fear of being sniped encourages you to bid your maximum value, and not just wait and see if you can sneak in a lower bid. This is what all auction sites want.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#42

Post by subroutine »

observationist wrote: post #31
subroutine wrote: post #20

What is the use case for LLM agent shoppers? I can't imagine delegating the purchase of a used item to an AI (I'd be okay with AI identifying the best deals for me to review). This must be something for people who are doing something at scale like flipping items on Ebay or drop shipping. I imagine this type of automation existed before LLM agents came along - what do they add? Is it just the ability to evaluate the p…

"Hey, ChatGPT/Grok/GeneriBot4000, please watch for a great deal on a 1982 stratocaster guitar - must be in good or better condition, $600 or less, and if you see it, go ahead and buy it without confirmation" Ongoing tasks, arbitrage for mispriced postings in ways that aren't currently exploited that LLMs make feasible - by banning auto-buy, maybe they're attempting to delineate between human seeming behavior and auto…

Yeah I guess that makes sense for some people. I'm just not in a financial position where I'd let an AI buy a $600 used guitar without me taking a look at it first.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#43

Post by tkzed49 »

Retr0id wrote: post #40
whyenot wrote: post #12

So scraping bots and “buy for me” bots are bad, but the incredibly annoying sniping bots are OK? That sure feels like a double standard.

I've bought hundreds of things on ebay over the years and I've never understood the issue with "sniping". Sure, I've been outbid at the last moment. Losing an auction is always a little frustrating. But if I was willing to pay that price I should have bid it myself. Feels fair enough?

why would you bid the highest price you can afford in an auction? the seller agreed to auction the thing; they could have just offered it for a set price.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#44

Post by jsheard »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #36
pishpash wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need for that. They only need to implement a closing auction like stock markets. But eBay hasn't done anything since the 1990's except raise fees.

> But eBay hasn't done anything since the 1990's except raise fees. Meanwhile it's now 100% free to sell on eBay for non-professional sellers. https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/fe...

They're playing stupid semantic games in order to claim there's no selling fees while still having selling fees. The fees were ostensibly shifted onto the buyer, except they're bundled into the sale price and cut from what the seller receives, so in effect nothing actually changed.

Before: Buyer pays £100, seller receives £100, seller later charged £5 fee, ends up with £95.

After: Buyer pays £100, eBay pockets £5 "buyer protection fee", seller receives £95 with "no fees".

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#45

Post by pwg »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #36
pishpash wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need for that. They only need to implement a closing auction like stock markets. But eBay hasn't done anything since the 1990's except raise fees.

> But eBay hasn't done anything since the 1990's except raise fees. Meanwhile it's now 100% free to sell on eBay for non-professional sellers. https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/fe...

> it's now 100% free to sell

Nice:

> You won't pay final value fees or regulatory operating fees

Of course, they will likely find some other way to extract their fees.

It would be nice, however, if the final value fee went away for US non-professional sellers.

There does seem to be no indication (at least on the page you linked) of how they define "private seller", which also opens up the possibility of them defining it so narrowly that, say, only five UK residents ever qualify.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#46

Post by subroutine »

some_random wrote: post #39
subroutine wrote: post #20

What is the use case for LLM agent shoppers? I can't imagine delegating the purchase of a used item to an AI (I'd be okay with AI identifying the best deals for me to review). This must be something for people who are doing something at scale like flipping items on Ebay or drop shipping. I imagine this type of automation existed before LLM agents came along - what do they add? Is it just the ability to evaluate the p…

"Hey ChatGPT I want to build my own personal cloud storage computer, buy all the hardware for me then walk me through building and configuring it. My budget is $600, try to get the best deals and make sure that all the parts are compatible. I'm fine with used parts as long as they're a good deal and are in working order."

You would really do this? You'd not even want to at least briefly review the cart before making a $600 purchase of used computer hardware?

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#47

Post by postalrat »

gpt5 wrote: post #41
BeetleB wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why eBay set things up to enable sniping. Many years ago, there was an auction site called uBid. They had the sane rule: Bidding is open as long as there have been bids in the past 5 minutes. So the end date could be January 24th, 3pm, but if someone bids at 2:58pm, the deadline is extended to 3:05pm. And it keeps going. You know, like how auctions in the real world work.

Guessing here - but they are probably relying on game theory / auction theory. They have a built in "sniping bot" - by allowing you to type your highest price, and it will auto-bid for you until that price. The fear of being sniped encourages you to bid your maximum value, and not just wait and see if you can sneak in a lower bid. This is what all auction sites want.

Except nobody uses it that way. Auctions are rare themselves. Sellers dont like it, buyers dont like it yet ebay won't change it.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#48

Post by bena »

ryandrake wrote: post #37
dingaling wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Establishing the price ceiling is difficult, though. You might arbitrarily set it as $23, but be sniped at $23.30. The sniper bot only needs to bid that small increment over your arbitrary ceiling. Can you really say that $23 was your hard limit, or would you have paid $23.40? Unless you're buying something also available at retail, nobody can be that accurate in foresight. Sniping removes the 'contemplation window'…

Then just put your actual hard limit in as your bid, and sleep soundly, knowing that if someone pays $0.01 more, it's OK because you wouldn't have wanted to pay that anyway. I've never really been bothered by "sniping" in eBay. I always bid my absolute 100% maximum, and if someone bids more than me, then they can have it.

It gets into the nature of "Which grain of sand makes it a pile?"

Knowing people bid snipe by bidding one cent over whole dollars, would you consistently bid two cents over if it meant you would win more of your auctions?

One cent is negligible. If you asked me if I would have paid $10.01 instead of $10.00, I'd probably say "Sure". $10.02? $10.03? Like, where does the line get drawn?

And then you come at it from the other way. Let's say I'd pay $10, but not $11. But what about $10.50? $10.25? Or we can go down by pennies again.

I agree, put in your limit and walk away. If you get overbid, even by a cent, don't sweat it. That's the game. But I can see why people get frustrated when they lose an auction by one cent.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#49

Post by HotHotLava »

tkzed49 wrote: post #43
Retr0id wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bought hundreds of things on ebay over the years and I've never understood the issue with "sniping". Sure, I've been outbid at the last moment. Losing an auction is always a little frustrating. But if I was willing to pay that price I should have bid it myself. Feels fair enough?

why would you bid the highest price you can afford in an auction? the seller agreed to auction the thing; they could have just offered it for a set price.

Do you not know how ebay works? You put in the maximum price you're willing to pay, and if you win you're paying 2nd highest bid + 1. So you don't save any money by starting with a low bid.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#50

Post by Nextgrid »

drum55 wrote: post #10
yieldcrv wrote: post #3

not the User Agreement! Impossible to enforce, they can read browser windows and pass captchas

eBay is hyper aggressive about fingerprinting, they will catch things like it trivially. Browsers leak all sorts of information like what sockets are open on localhost, making yourself look like an actual person is very challenging to someone motivated to detect you.

LLMs don't need browser automation though. Multimodal models with vision input can operate a real computer with "real" user inputs over USB, where the computer itself returns a real, plausible browser fingerprint because it is a real browser being operated by something that behaves humanly.
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