Sign-in to Contact Seller, or Leave Feedback... even when already signed in... is this new?

[cheerindigo]

About the same time as the sign-in redirect scare happened over the past week, I noticed eBay now asks for me to sign in when I choose to Contact Seller from an item page (not at first, only after the saying 'no' to the suggested answers and asking for actual contact).   Even though I'm already signed in, and can bid and buy with no problem.  Also, I just noticed, it requires sign-in for leaving feedback.

I don't remember either one of these requiring an extra sign-in step, but especially the Contact Seller, which was a simple thing last time I tried it (only a few weeks ago).

Does this happen for everyone?  Is it new?  Has it been discussed elsewhere?  Thanks for any personal experience or insight you can offer.  I mainly want to make sure it's not some malware trying to get me to sign in so it can grab my sign-in info.

[tonycstech]

Security reasons my ass.

If i was able to sign in once, what will prevent me from doing it again ?

Soon, we will be asked to sign every time you open ebay page, regardless of your browsers ability to save login sessions or remember sign in information.

They push this security because its becomes requirement for speeding up implantable identification chip for all people.

[berserkerplanet]

>>If i was able to sign in once, what will prevent me from doing it again ?

You sign in at a public place and walk away from the machine without signing out.
Someone else sits down and starts messing with your account.
That person would not be able to provide sign-in credentials if asked to by eBay, which prevents them from changing account settings, or performing actions like leaving feedback that can't be reversed, and protects your account.

There are (were?) also session cookie based exploits where intercepting session cookies (wifi?) can allow an attacker to kludge up a live session with a website, but again, they can't authenticate again if asked to (this is in general - don't know if it is applicable to eBay.)

There are many tin-foil hats, in many styles available for sale on eBay. They also make great Christmas gifts