eBay Bans Rapleaf Links

Rapleaf is a new feedback and reputation startup that aims to be the open version of eBay feedback. For more information, see my initial profile and launch post. Rapleaf is a product that I strongly endorse and believe in (and I asked for something like this last year in this post).

In what I see as a good sign for Rapleaf, eBay appears to be selectively removing listings from sellers who point to their Rapleaf reputation profiles:

From: auended@ebay.com <>
Date: May 16, 2006 5:53 AM
Subject: eBay Listing Removed: Inappropriate Links (=LS &12362 JM10590049)
To: [redacted]@gmail.com

Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 14:54:23 PDT

Dear [redacted],

We appreciate that you chose eBay to list the following listing(s):

[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted]

However, your listing was in violation of eBay’s Inappropriate Links policy and has been removed from eBay. We have credited all associated fees to your account and notified eBay users associated with the transaction that it has been cancelled.

We would like to take this opportunity to let you know what part of your listing is not permitted.

Your listing(s) contains the following information:

http://www.rapleaf.com/profile/view/[redacted]

http://www.rapleaf.com/profile/view/[redacted]

http://www.rapleaf.com/profile/view/[redacted]

eBay does have complicated rules for what type of outside links may be included within a post (see policies here). However, these rules are rarely enforced and there are countless examples of policy breaches that do not result in a listing being terminated. For example, see this listing for the sale of search engine DigForIt, which contains numerous third party links and which also clearly violates eBay’s linking policy.

In this case, it seems clear that eBay does not want Rapleaf’s new reputation system encroaching on their territory. And by banning links to Rapleaf, they may have just given them the marketing push that the new startup needed.

Rapleaf

Tags: ebay, reputation, techcrunch, web2.0, web_2.0