eBay told users it would extend the "Safeguarding Member IDs" initiative it had introduced on the eBay Motors website and on the UK and Australian sites. In a posting on eBay's Announcement Board, Senior Vice President of eBay Global Trust & Safety Rob Chesnut told users the program has been successful in reducing unwanted commercial and malicious spam (including Fake Second Chance Offers) to bidders on higher-priced auction-style listings. As a result, eBay will roll out "Safeguarding Member IDs," or "SMIs," on eBay.com and eBay.ca later this week.

The initiative, which reduces transparency on the site by shielding bidders' User IDs when bidding reaches $200 or greater, has been controversial, as it limits users' ability to detect shill bidding - a practice in which sellers bid on their own items, which is prohibited on eBay.

Chesnut said shill bidding is not tolerated on eBay and said, "it's important to know that over the years, eBay has invested heavily in shill detection systems. We can proactively detect and investigate possible shill bidding scenarios with a higher rate of accuracy than ever before. These backend systems collect more information on selling and bidding activity than our Community has access to, so we can detect patterns and ascertain identities much more accurately. Be assured that we will continue to monitor the sites where SMI has launched to ensure that increased shill bidding does not become an unintended consequence of SMI."

SMI will impact listings on eBay.com that start at or reach a bid level of $200 or greater. On eBay Canada, it will impact listings above the C$220 level.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200701081004422.html