Adverts appearing in My eBay

31/10/2007 at 20:45

Adverts in My eBayHere I am, minding my own business (literally!) and checking my eBay sales and bam, the latest eBay advertising hits me between the eyes. Well ok, maybe not between the eyes, but it’s there at the bottom of the left hand navigation bar.

I have a number of objections to this, not least of which is why do I want to waste my valuable bandwidth downloading adverts in which I have no interest? Perhaps it’s time to invest in an ad blocker to zap the annoying things?

Whilst downloading adverts when I’m trying to click dropdown links that don’t work until the entire page has loaded is annoying, I’m more interested in what eBay intend to do with the adverts for the future. It’s the first spot on the site where they could easily serve up adverts personalised to me.

That’s not personalised to the search terms I as an eBay user enter, not personalised based on generalised buying or selling behaviour. I’m talking about personalised based on what eBay know about me as an individual!

I have to question if this is a good move on eBay’s part, they already have off site links in search results which are justified on the basis of a better buyer experience. This isn’t benefiting buyers though, the adverts are appearing in the selling section of My eBay. It’s purely and simply a way to raise revenues, whether it be with eBay owned services or with third party advertisers.

I don’t like it, it’s unwelcome and intrusive, it’s my personal space on eBay where I manage my business and don’t forget I *PAY* for the privilege of listing and managing my auctions. If it was a freebie service fair enough, but I don’t expect to pay for a service and still suffer a string of adverts stealing my bandwidth.