There are reports that eBay will roll out changes to its Feedback policies over the next six to nine months. eBay members rate each other using the Feedback system and build up a reputation based on the satisfaction of previous trading partners.

Users have long complained that the Feedback system falls short and allows renegade buyers and sellers to continue to wreak havoc with other members. (See http://www.auctionbytes.com/pages/abu/y202/m02/abu0063/s02.)

Changes that eBay will reportedly roll out include:

• Allowing members to view feedback by type of transaction (buyer versus seller feedback)
• Displaying the number of feedback left by repeat customers
• Allowing member to leave follow-up comments without waiting for responses
• Requiring members to leave more detailed information when leaving negative or neutral feedback

The inability to remove mistaken or retaliatory feedback is one of the biggest complaints against eBay's feedback policy. Retaliatory feedback is when a member leaves untrue and often inflammatory feedback about a trading partner to retaliate against something the partner did, having nothing to do with the integrity of the transaction. The information obtained about eBay's planned feedback changes makes no mention of any changes to the feedback removal policy. The current policy may be found at: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/fbremove.html.