Remove policy and/or security violations--HTTP images

[randysouders]

Is eBay deleting listings that have HTTP (and not HTTPS) linked images in the item descriptions?

I have 150 listings that include images placed within the item description. These are linked to an externally hosted GoDaddy website and each image begins with HTTP.  eBay has sent me a message stating-->

"some of your listings are in violation of eBay policies and require immediate update.  your listings contain(s) non-secure HTTP content. Starting in October 2017, Google Chrome—the browser used by almost half of all eBay buyers— will begin displaying the message "Not Secure" in the address bar when users visit standard HTTP pages or HTTPS pages that include non-secure HTTP content. We encourage you to immediately remove this content. "

I need to know if eBay intends to disable or delete all of my auctions or if this "strong encouragement" is to help maximize sales.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to immediately address this issue in the next few days. I've been an active seller since 1998 and have spent countless hours creating my ads. If eBay vaporizes them I may just throw in the towell after nearly 20 years and $200k in sales. 

[nc-daydreamer]

Yes. They started today actually.  But I don't understand - I had stationery - formatting - colors - an interesting and fun layout that I worked hard for years to create. Starting with about 1000 listings, I began the task of jumping reluctantly through their hoops over the summer.  Woke up this morning to find plain, boring and lifeless ads with all my stationery backgrounds - gone.  I have not checked all of them, but what I have, I am unhappy with.

The ads were there, just they were/are not attractive any longer. They were html coded, not http links, so I truly am saddened and upset - I was of the impression that only links were in the bullseye.  And they came up in Google general word and image searches.  Now, not only my borders, but my store logo and PayPal certification too - gone.  They were working fine -just yesterday - fine, with the meta tags, no embedded or third party pictures... This ugliness is not why I pay for a store front.

If they had plans to do this in this manner, why did they not save everyone the aggravation and effort of fixing our own ads - driving us all insane and making us lose sleep to please them... they could have just removed all they wanted early in the summer and been done with it.

[shipscript]

@randysouders

In the near term, eBay will put your non-compliant description one-click-away so that your non-secure content will not compromise eBay's secure listing page.

http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing/browser-security-standards.html

eBay is strongly urging sellers to make their content secure to avoid the one-click-away situation, and the one-click-away solution will give sellers more time to comply.  eBay has not stated whether there will be a future mandate to remove non-secure content, but my guess is that they will be going that direction next year.

GoDaddy does sell SSL-certificates, so you might want to look into purchasing one for your site.  The prices for certificates are falling dramatically with the new demand for secure sites, so, while the certificates were previously expensive, they should now range from  free to no more than $40 per year at various webhosting sites.