Is there an old, seemingly forgotten eBay ID you've got your eye on, just waiting for it to expire? Sorry. It won't.
It's eBay policy to not retire confirmed user IDs, no matter how long they sit around unused. Now that eBay has been around for the better part of a decade, some of those no-feedback names are starting to look more than a little stale. We went online and asked enthusiastic eBay users if the company should start deleting IDs after a certain period of hibernation. "Yes, they should," says AuctionBytes user likearock. "No, they won't."
"This is one of the oldest points of contention between Ebay and its customers," said AuctionBytes member goodnitemoon. "If you check into it, you will find that most of the good names with 0-3 feedbacks were grabbed in 1996 and 1997. The people who hoarded these names expected to be able to sell them later. Ebay quickly made a policy against selling IDs...but that didn't make anyone relinquish hoarded names."
Goodnitemoon added, "Even back in the olden days, when Ebay responded to their customers' concerns, they wouldn't do anything about this, so I'm very sure they won't fix it now." (But tell us what you really think!)
There are other theories, not involving corporate laissez-faire, about why eBay won't change the policy. "Well, that would sure make their membership numbers decline," joked AuctionBytes member veebee. Some members of the Auction Ethics discussion board had the same idea. "Not recycling IDs is just driving up the number of registered users," wrote terrafreaky. It seems unlikely that this is the reason for eBay's no-recycling policy, but maybe it's an unintended side benefit.
Let's give eBay a chance to defend itself. "Policies are always evolving based in part on what the community is looking for," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy, but retiring dusty user IDs is "not under discussion right now." Is that because not enough eBay users have been vocal about wanting the policy changed? Durzy explained that the input of community members is part of policy changes, but it's not like the majority rules or there's ever a vote. Rules are changed "when we decide it's best for the overall marketplace," said Durzy. EBay currently sees no compelling need to re-release old IDs into the wild, but "never say never," he added.
The policy isn't completely inflexible. EBay has redistributed a few user IDs in the past, said Durzy, but only unconfirmed ones. Doing anything else opens up a whole new can of worms, and many eBay users agree, expressing concern about reintroducing IDs that have been used even once. "You wouldn't want people you left good comments for to suddenly be someone else," observed TomSwift in the Auction Ethics forums.
EBay could perhaps dissolve IDs after "a pretty lengthy period of time, so that users don't think they are buying from somebody who had that ID in the past," wrote Auction Ethics member marble. Also, it "seems like if they retire the ID they could purge the feedback," replied Flutterbees, also noting that this may be more work than eBay wants to do.
Other suggestions for successful purging also sounded labor-intensive for eBay.
Some say eBay should attempt to verify the contact information on old IDs, and release them if the contact information isn't valid (or if the owner of the inactive ID agrees to give it up). Several users would like to see eBay inform people attempting to register a pre-owned ID that it's not brand new, because some eBay users won't want a used ID no matter how clever it is.
Verdict: old eBay IDs may be wasting space and annoying new members with few catchy names left to choose from, but removing them seems like more trouble than it's worth - at least for now.
