Etsy stirred up controversy this week with its decision to allow buyers to make their purchase history private. The problem for some sellers is that potential buyers will not be able to judge negative feedback left for them by buyers who turn on the privacy setting. Currently shoppers can investigate whether a buyer who left a negative feedback has a history of such behavior and can see which items buyers were dissatisfied with.

According to Etsy, if a buyer chooses to make their purchases private, the feedback they leave for shops on publicly viewable feedback pages will be anonymized. The item purchased and username involved will be hidden. The date of the purchase, feedback rating and feedback text will continue to be visible to everyone.

Sellers will still be able to see who their own buyers are and which of their items buyers wish to purchase. But sellers will not able to tell what other shops "private buyers" have purchased from or which items they've purchased from those shops.

The move was controversial as sellers anticipated problems. Comments included:

"We need ID's to weed out the loonies who cannot be satisfied and leave a trail of unhappy feedback wherever they go;"

"We need accountability so your mother cannot buy 100 20-cent items and leave you glowing feedback on all;"

"Your copycat cannot buy something and leave you a negative because he can."

Etsy said the change would go live for all users within a week or so. Link to announcement.