NOTE: I am posting this article in attempts to shed light on an on-going debate about whether the eBay Toolbar is Spyware or not. I am merely posting the facts about this utility available throughout the Internet, and I will remain neutral on this issue. From what is presented here, you will be able to see both eBay's story, and other users' stories about the Toolbar and if they believe it contains Spyware. I am not trying to discourage use of this tool, but merely posting facts about what others believe it to be.

What Is the eBay Toolbar?

The eBay Toolbar is a small utility that resides in your (Internet Explorer) browser and assists you with some common eBay tasks. Some of the benefits of having the eBay toolbar installed include:

• Alerts (will notify you before an auction that you are interested in bidding on ends)

• Title and Description Search with One Click

• Auction Tracking (see what items you are watching, bidding on, and what you've won)

• Access to My eBay and other common site locations with one click

• Account Guard (helps protect you against scammers and fake sites trying to get your information)

However, since the toolbar's release in the late 1990's, it has been subject to much debate about whether it is a Spyware application or not. According to SearchCIO.COM, Spyware is defined as "any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge." As you can see, Spyware isn't typically something that you would want to install on your computer due to the obvious privacy issues. I hope that this article will help you in making a decision of whether you want to install the eBay toolbar or not!

What Does eBay Say About the Toolbar?

First let me cover eBay's stance on this issue. When asked directly about whether or not the eBay Toolbar contained Spyware, an eBay technical support staff gave me the following one-word response: NO. I was then told to contact the eBay Toolbar support center for further details, and they linked to the standard eBay contact page. Unfortunately, there was no specific contact category for the eBay Toolbar. On the official eBay Toolbar site, you are only given the following blurb about the toolbar possibly being Spyware:

So... EBay says that their toolbar is NOT Spyware by any means. You should be able to trust such a large and respectable company, right? Well, read further and you will see some other information that has been dug up about the eBay toolbar... And why many consider it to indeed be Spyware. EBay's privacy policy mentions subtle details about what information they collect and what they do with it, such as "aggregate personal information and disclose such information in a non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties for their marketing and promotional purposes" but there is never specific mention of the eBay toolbar in their privacy policy document. In fact, as one person pointed out they actually violate their own privacy policy as is explained further in this document.

What Do Others Say About the Toolbar?

It seems that eBay will not post factual documentation to support their statement that the toolbar is NOT Spyware, however there has been an overwhelming number of folks reporting that it IS. I started my research by going to Download.COM where the eBay Toolbar is listed. The nice thing about download sites is they allow actual users to review the software. So, I checked out the reviews for the eBay Toolbar which currently has over 37,000 downloads, 26 rating votes, and 20 reviews. Out of the 26 votes, 62% of them DO NOT recommend the program to others. 14 of the reviews are not in favor of the Toolbar, and the strong majority of them center around the Spyware issue. To see the reviews, visit THIS PAGE. Some of the reviews are included below:

"You can't close it. You can't uninstall it. It records everything you do for someone elses profit"

"Another hitch on the ebay site."

"Major Spyware!! - Also is not easy to remove once loaded. It does however work very well."

"Sloppy written Spyware"

At the same site, there are other reviews which say that if you 'don't mind spyware' than this Toolbar is a good enhancement. I suggest you have a look through all of the REVIEWS on the site to come up with a better idea of what the eBay toolbar does.

What about a more factual report on this case? Well, according to Patrick Kolla (who is the developer of the very popular Spyware Removal software - Spybot Search & Destroy)

"It's verified now that the eBay toolbar is violating eBay's own Privacy Policy. According to eBays Privacy Policy, Appendix 2, stuff like IPs etc. is given to Advertisers only in a non-personal manner, to External Service Providers only with given permission (which is not asked for in the toolbar license agreement) or upon direct contact (which the user doesn't know anything about).

[During testing] The toolbar contacts both MediaPlex (adfarm.mediaplex.com) and DoubleClick (ad.doubleclick.net), using at least the first as a page relocator. That means this relocator page at MediaPlex receives the whole URL that the toolbar calls. It receives all search terms, and in the POST (formular) data of the HTML header it will also receive any formular data you enter or that is transmitted automatically.

The mediaplex relocator also contains some long number that could be a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier).

The least thing those two advertisers could monitor is the keywords you search for on ebay; MediaPlex is using their cookie for the toolbar, so they can track you very easy."

Conclusion

Well there you have it. EBay insists that the toolbar does not contain Spyware, but many others say it does. If you feel that eBay can be trusted (and indeed, they are a very respectable company) or just are eager to get the Toolbar, feel free to do so! I am in no way trying to turn people away from this tool which does offer some handy shortcuts for common eBay tasks. Back in September of 2003 eBay posted a response to a question about Spyware simply by saying that it uses MediaPlex Tracking Mechanism, but that they were looking to remove it from the Toolbar. We are now many many months past that time, and the MediaPlex affiliate service still runs through the Toolbar! I tried my best to cover both sides of this issue, unfortunately eBay did not leave me much to work with and the majority of Spyware knowledge and facts has come from other users of the Toolbar. I hope you found this article to be of some importance.