eBay Australia today (3 Feb) begins following the format used by other eBay sites to mask the identity of bidders in auction format listings.

A brief recent announcement justifies this as -

We are pleased to announce today that from next Tuesday 3 February, eBay.com.au will change the way it displays the bidders’ IDs to align with other eBay sites (e.g. a***b).

We’ve received plenty of feedback from our community about the way bidders IDs are displayed and we know many of you prefer the transparency that the aliases used on other eBay sites offers.

This change means aliases on eBay.com.au will consist of two random characters from the member’s User ID – for example, a***b. This method of identifying a bidder (whose feedback score is also visible) gives members a sense of who is bidding, while still protecting the bidders’ identities.

This change will not affect bidding activity – you’ll simply notice the IDs change from Bidder 1, Bidder 2 to the randomised formula as explained above.

Sellers will still be able to see all the actual User IDs for the bidders on their listings when logged into the site.

Is this a boon to shill bidding as some eBay forum posters claim?  Have your say, add a comment below.

Ed