eBay said it will allow members to withdraw feedback when both trading partners agree. Mutual Feedback Withdrawal will allow members to withdraw feedback "on those occasions when they have worked out a dispute that caused a negative feedback." eBay revealed the forthcoming policy when it announced that its new Member Profile pages will be introduced to the site in the next few days. eBay had previously announced the new Member Profile pages in November (see AuctionBytes coverage at http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m11/i25/s03.)

Feedback is one of the main tools eBay uses to attempt to keep buyers and sellers honest. eBay members can leave feedback only for their trading partners. Strict policies forbid the removal of feedback, even when the posting is a mistake. The only option for removing feedback has been to pay a $20 fee to SquareTrade when both parties agree to the removal (http://digbig.com/3khq). eBay did not reveal whether it would charge members for its new Mutual Feedback Withdrawal feature.

Many sellers have complained about eBay's policy that allows "non-paying bidders" (NPBs) to leave them negative feedback. Sellers file NPB reports so eBay does not charge commission fees on transactions that aren't completed. Sellers argue that since the non-paying bidder has not completed the transaction by paying for the item, the bidder should not be allowed to rate the transaction. There was no mention in today's announcement that eBay would do anything to address this problem or other issues surrounding its feedback system.