eBay held its monthly Town Hall meeting on Monday afternoon focused on Trust and Safety issues, and the company also announced changes to its new Safeguarding Member IDs (SMI) policy.

Rob Chesnut, eBay's Senior Vice President of Trust & Safety, Dave Cullinane, eBay's Chief Information Security Officer, and other managers were on hand to answer questions from eBay users who called by phone or emailed their questions ahead of time. The Town Hall forum where users were previously able to post questions appears to have been removed from the website, AuctionBytes is awaiting confirmation from eBay whether this is so.

eBay started the meeting by discussing the new Feedback 2.0 system that will be rolled out worldwide this week. eBay said the adoption rate in countries where the system has already rolled out is over 70 percent. There has been no decrease in the number of feedback left, and no change in the percentage of positive and negative ratings. However, eBay said the conversion rates for sellers with ratings under 3 have gone down.

Sellers had several questions about the new rating system - one wanted to know whether eBay would use the detailed ratings to gauge PowerSeller status in the future (the answer was no, not at launch, though they couldn't promise it would never be a factor, and eBay said the system was designed to give buyers more information).

Another seller wanted to know why the new system was being implemented right before the USPS postal rate increase coming in 2 weeks. (Feedback 2.0 was ready, eBay said, and explained what the company had done to prepare itself and sellers for the postal rate changes.)

eBay also announced some changes to its new Safeguarding Member IDs policy on Monday. SMI is designed to protect eBay bidders from unwanted spam, and eBay said since introducing SMI, it has seen a significant reduction in fake Second Chance Offers and other types of solicitations sent to bidders on higher-priced auction-style listings.

eBay said it will make the following adjustments to SMI this week:

• Enhancements to Search by Bidder
  When members use the Search by Bidder feature (found under Advanced Search), they'll now be able to see all the details of that bidder's bidding activity on items below the $200 threshold.
• Sellers can use Advanced Search to research potential buyers
  Sellers will be able to use Advanced Search to conduct full research on their current bidders for a 48-hour period after the bid is placed. In addition, they will also be able to research the activity of any member who sends them an Ask Seller a Question email or uses Best Offer within a 48-hour period of the email/offer being sent.
• Safeguarding Member IDs on listings with a Reserve or Buy It Now over $200 If a bidder bids on a listing where the Reserve price or Buy It Now is above $200, their ID will be anonymized just as if they had placed a bid over $200.
• Anonymous bidder IDs for Best Offers The IDs of buyers on the Best Offer history page will no longer be fully displayed to viewers. Instead, the last part of their ID will be hidden by asterisks. However, the seller of the item will be able to see the ID in full, as before.

Announcement - Update on Safeguarding Member IDs:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200704301313182.html

Photos of the eBay Town Hall Meeting on the eBay Chatter Blog:
http://www.ebaychatter.com/the_chatter/2007/04/live_coverage_o.html