After allowing casual sellers to list an unlimited number of auctions for free, eBay's UK marketplace is reversing the policy. eBay UK had made it free for "private sellers" to list auctions with a starting price of under a pound, but on Thursday announced it would now institute a cap on the number of free auctions casual sellers may list.

Private sellers with a feedback score of less than 25 will now automatically be limited to 100 live listings/total quantity at any point in time on ebay.co.uk and ebay.ie. Any private seller listing in high volumes will be reviewed by Customer Support, and would potentially required to upgrade to business status or be blocked from listing on ebay.co.uk and ebay.ie.

Overseas sellers are also impacted. Sellers registered on the ebay.com site are bound by the International Trading Policy, which requires high volume sellers actively listing on European sites to be registered as business sellers.

Private sellers registered on all other international sites are now automatically limited to 100 live listings/total quantity at any point in time on ebay.co.uk and ebay.ie. For the full details, see the eBay UK announcement.

In other news, eBay said Tuesday it was officially launching its buyer protection policy in the UK.