eBay will require members to sign in before accessing data about closed items. Visitors to the Web site will still be able to search for active items without logging in. But if they want to search for auctions that have ended, they must sign in. Both buyers and sellers find completed-auction data useful because it gives them information about whether items sold and the prices attained.

eBay's reason for making the change is not completely clear. The announcement read in part, "Completed Items data can be valuable information that is generated by the eBay Community, so it will be available only to registered members of the eBay Community."

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that eBay had entered into several data-licensing agreements (http://digbig.com/3gsy). eBay charges licensees as much as $10,000.

AuctionBytes first reported Andale's license of eBay data in June (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m06/abu0097/s03). Andale charges its customers $2.95 for access to its Research tool, which provides information about the performance of past auctions going back 52 weeks.

Andale's tool competes with HammerTap's DeepAnalysis tool (http://www.hammertap.com/deepanalysis). HammerTap does not license the data from eBay. By restricting access to completed data, eBay may be forcing third-party vendors to pay for historic data.

eBay said the new Completed-Items access policy will go into effect on the U.S. site in the next few days, and will roll out to international eBay sites early next year.