Demystifyig VeRO Program & IP Policy On eBay. The stupidity from Ebay is stounding!

[escuintla]

I got this "friendly" reminder of an item taken down, what? Last year? I went to check if I was selling anything different, and even when I used my own pictures it was taken down because I didn't have any resale authorization, you guys know all the blah, blah, blah. But, how about the other hundreds of the same **bleep**?

I am very firm, and very pro-accepting whatever the stupid, idiotic, etc VeRO programs does, their business, but I hate how Ebay portrays it. 

Fist of all, these $(^*% people in the VeRO program should apply their punishment across the board, not leaving you with foam in your mouth when you watch they don't take down 10s of pages of listings of  the same **bleep** you were warned to not sell again on Ebay.

Is that too much to ask you the ^(&$#  in that program?

Yes, I am very furious! I can't take so much stupidity from Ebay and VeRO.  

https://mesg.ebay.com/mesgweb/ViewMessageDetail/0/ebay/110432975314

[tunicaslot]

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@escuintla wrote:

I got this "friendly" reminder of an item taken down, what? Last year? I went to check if I was selling anything different, and even when I used my own pictures it was taken down because I didn't have any resale authorization, you guys know all the blah, blah, blah. But, how about the other hundreds of the same **bleep**?

I am very firm, and very pro-accepting whatever the stupid, idiotic, etc VeRO programs does, their business, but I hate how Ebay portrays it. 

Fist of all, these $(^*% people in the VeRO program should apply their punishment across the board, not leaving you with foam in your mouth when you watch they don't take down 10s of pages of listings of  the same **bleep** you were warned to not sell again on Ebay.

Is that too much to ask you the ^(&$#  in that program?

Yes, I am very furious! I can't take so much stupidity from Ebay and VeRO.  

https://mesg.ebay.com/mesgweb/ViewMessageDetail/0/ebay/110432975314

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Another thread just mentioned an item that he had taken down last year - sold at a yard sale and the buyer now has it listed and even tho it was reported - it's still up.

Ebay has never policed itself and that is the problem. With all the tech available - it should be easier these days to do a search and remove all that are against policy - but they don't.

[gracieallen01]

It seems that the message to you has been removed, or it isn't available for others to see. 

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

It seems that the message to you has been removed, or it isn't available for others to see. 

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You can't see someone else's private messages.

[twnpopcards]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

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@escuintla wrote:

I got this "friendly" reminder of an item taken down, what? Last year? I went to check if I was selling anything different, and even when I used my own pictures it was taken down because I didn't have any resale authorization, you guys know all the blah, blah, blah. But, how about the other hundreds of the same **bleep**?

I am very firm, and very pro-accepting whatever the stupid, idiotic, etc VeRO programs does, their business, but I hate how Ebay portrays it. 

Fist of all, these $(^*% people in the VeRO program should apply their punishment across the board, not leaving you with foam in your mouth when you watch they don't take down 10s of pages of listings of  the same **bleep** you were warned to not sell again on Ebay.

Is that too much to ask you the ^(&$#  in that program?

Yes, I am very furious! I can't take so much stupidity from Ebay and VeRO.  

https://mesg.ebay.com/mesgweb/ViewMessageDetail/0/ebay/110432975314

---

Another thread just mentioned an item that he had taken down last year - sold at a yard sale and the buyer now has it listed and even tho it was reported - it's still up.

Ebay has never policed itself and that is the problem. With all the tech available - it should be easier these days to do a search and remove all that are against policy - but they don't.

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That requires that they have top notch programmers on staff and Ebay just does not have this anymore as they continue to ship this work offshore to India because it costs less.  But the old adage of "you get what you pay for" has sure rung true on Ebays platform ever since they started doing this.  The QC on this site is non existent anymore, again because they do not want to pay for it and continue to use the Sellers as their QC department each time any changes are made to the site.  TPTB or what remains of them as many have left recently refuse to acknowledge that the continued failure of this site to grow stems a lot due to the poor performance of the Platform, including Sellers Hub.  I have a very high speed internet connection yet when i try to make changes to a listing I usually get to watch the working circle for a lot longer than i did when i was using Selling Manager Pro.

[goodluckselling]

You do realize all the actions were done by the VERO member and not eBay? 

If you want to other hundreds of listing gone which I guess would make you feel less irritated about the take down, then take action.  Contact the VERO Member from the contact info eBay shares with you and give them a link to the hundreds of other listings. 

Good Luck Selling!

[zamo-zuan]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

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Another thread just mentioned an item that he had taken down last year - sold at a yard sale and the buyer now has it listed and even tho it was reported - it's still up.

Ebay has never policed itself and that is the problem. With all the tech available - it should be easier these days to do a search and remove all that are against policy - but they don't.

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I would like to give a little more insight from the perspective of the Motors category.

Recently eBay has allowed auto manufacturers to "change" the VeRO policy (again) which is unfair to sellers!

Years back, they would say you just need "for" or "Fits" in the title. At the beginning of the title was perfectly fine. So back years ago a listing such as:

"Fits: Engine Mount 2000-2010 Toyota Celica" 

used to be acceptable. That's the advice they gave us when updating listings.

Then as of last year, they started saying "Fits has to be prior to the vehicle information". They had a help page regarding this that showed compliant and non compliant examples.

The new format was:

"Engine Mount for 2000-2010 Toyota Celica".

So we updated our listings based around this. 

Now we've received reports lately for the exact phrase above and eBay would not remove them! 

They're saying now, "for needs to immediately precede the vehicle name. Example:

"Engine Mount 2000-2010 for Toyota Celica".

This doesn't make sense. That's not even proper english first of all... and second, it doesn't make it look any more or less like a Toyota item! 

To make it even more frustrating, the link to the old policy page for VeRO in Motors is GONE! So we don't have any proof that all our listings are compliant.

Well, aside from the fact that ~6 months ago we had VeRO complaints removed because our listings were compliant. That should be enough evidence. But their written policy is gone.

How could they uphold, and furthermore penalize people, for a policy that isn't even written on the website?

How is it fair to punish people for policy changes, when they never even informed sellers of the changes? Or gave them time to update the listings?

If you check the Motors category, there's millions of non-compliant listings according to them now. Simply because they're allowing policy changes...?

Oh and the page on eBay that lists VeRO compliant manufacturers? Auto manufacturers are no longer listed there!

To get these complaints removed? EBay can't do it, that can only be done by the companies making the copyright claims...? 

So you're supposed to convince the companies to remove a claim, the same companies that are knowingly making false claims that your items are not compliant and changing the rules on us...?

It's such a mess, and so unfair. 

Starting immediately following our last VeRO claim, our sales have dropped to have the lowest week we've had in over 3 years... 

Extremely unfair as eBay records show we were compliant up until the last policy they informed us of, and they even backed us up because we were compliant in the past. And there's not even a written policy on the site anymore to enforce!!

[tunicaslot]

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That requires that they have top notch programmers on staff and Ebay just does not have this anymore as they continue to ship this work offshore to India because it costs less.  But the old adage of "you get what you pay for" has sure rung true on Ebays platform ever since they started doing this.  The QC on this site is non existent anymore, again because they do not want to pay for it and continue to use the Sellers as their QC department each time any changes are made to the site.  TPTB or what remains of them as many have left recently refuse to acknowledge that the continued failure of this site to grow stems a lot due to the poor performance of the Platform, including Sellers Hub.  I have a very high speed internet connection yet when i try to make changes to a listing I usually get to watch the working circle for a lot longer than i did when i was using Selling Manager Pro.

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Every time I use IE and try to list - the screen freezes so I have to use Foxfire. I still get the little circle thingy - and I don't have a problem on any other site. It's been like this for months.

[luckythewinner]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

Ebay has never policed itself and that is the problem. With all the tech available - it should be easier these days to do a search and remove all that are against policy - but they don't.

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VERO reports are initiated by third parties who report individual items to eBay, not by eBay "tech" or eBay "policies".

It is not eBay's job to search the site for IP violations, because only the the IP rights holder is in a position to know whether a particular item violates IP or is permitted under a licensing agreement (which are sometimes confidential, incidentally.)

There are 1.2 billion items on eBay, and eBay cannot possibly know the authenticity of every item on the site, let alone the IP status and the various licensing agreements that may apply.

(For the record, I am a VERO member who reports something like half-dozen listing a week for the music artists that I represent).

[zamo-zuan]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@tunicaslot wrote:

Ebay has never policed itself and that is the problem. With all the tech available - it should be easier these days to do a search and remove all that are against policy - but they don't.

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VERO reports are initiated by third parties who report individual items to eBay, not by eBay "tech" or eBay "policies".

It is not eBay's job to search the site for IP violations, because only the the IP rights holder is in a position to know whether a particular item violates IP or is permitted under a licensing agreement (which are sometimes confidential, incidentally.)

There are 1.2 billion items on eBay, and eBay cannot possibly know the authenticity of every item on the site, let alone the IP status and the various licensing agreements that may apply.

(For the record, I am a VERO member who reports something like half-dozen listing a week for the music artists that I represent).

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The eBay VeRO team is supposed to at least validate the complaint is legit or not. That's the problem we're noticing here.

The policy that was written on their site, and the format the majority of Motors sellers are using (and were told by eBay to use) is being reported. And eBay is accepting those reports! 

I searched simply "Engine Mount" and set the category earlier. Every single listing except ours is using the format of "for 2000-2010 Toyota". Except us. Yet eBay is allowing manufacturers to make these false claims!

Plus the car manufacturers were removed from the VeRO page, and there's no longer a "Motors" page showing what is compliant or not. 

It's just a mess, and hugely unfair. 

[luckythewinner]

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

The eBay VeRO team is supposed to at least validate the complaint is legit or not. That's the problem we're noticing here.

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The law that the VERO program was designed to comply with (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act)  specifically absolves the website provider from any responsibility for determining the validity of the request

eBay's only responsibility under the DMCA is to remove the disputed content promptly when ti receives a Notice of Claimed Infringement (NOCI).  As long as they do this, they are shielded from any liability arising from the content of the seller's listing (the so-called 'safe harbor' provision of the DMCA).

It is up to the VERO member and the seller to argue the validity of the claim through the use of a counter-notice to the NOCI and/or legal action. eBay is absolutely NOT supposed to validate whether the complain is legit or not. That is the whole point of the safe harbor provision of the DMCA! 

eBay has absolutely no incentive to make any determination of the merits of a NOCI, because doing so only increases their potential  liability.

[a_c_green]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

It seems that the message to you has been removed, or it isn't available for others to see. 

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What was the brand or item in question?

[slippinjimmy]

The eBay VeRO team is supposed to at least validate the complaint is legit or not.

100% wrong, eBay does not and is not supposed to verify anything related to infringement notices submitted under the DMCA. The whole purpose of the Vero system is to comply with the safe harbour provisions of the DMCA. In order for eBay to qualify for safe harbour they are specifically prevented from having ANY opinion on the validity of the claim.

If you do not agree with the take down order you can file a counter-notice against the the person/company that filed the claim. If eBay were to interfere they would lose their safe harbour and would be equally liable for damages.

If you want to complain about the DMCA go ahead and contact your representatives in Washington, they are the ones who created the system.

[zamo-zuan]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

The eBay VeRO team is supposed to at least validate the complaint is legit or not. That's the problem we're noticing here.

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The law that the VERO program was designed to comply with (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act)  specifically absolves the website provider from any responsibility for determining the validity of the request

eBay's only responsibility under the DMCA is to remove the disputed content promptly when ti receives a Notice of Claimed Infringement (NOCI).  As long as they do this, they are shielded from any liability arising from the content of the seller's listing (the so-called 'safe harbor' provision of the DMCA).

It is up to the VERO member and the seller to argue the validity of the claim through the use of a counter-notice to the NOCI and/or legal action. eBay is absolutely NOT supposed to validate whether the complain is legit or not. That is the whole point of the safe harbor provision of the DMCA! 

eBay has absolutely no incentive to make any determination of the merits of a NOCI, because doing so only increases their potential  liability.

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That's not what we've been told in the past, when eBay CSR's removed VeRO complaints on our behalf because they were compliant.

That was ~6 months ago. But now they won't do the same.

Furthermore, if eBay is going to take action and apply a penalty to sellers as a result of those claims, isn't that breaching RICO if they aren't doing even a base level of verification? 

Beyond that, the manufacturers making the claims are not even on the list of participant profiles for the VeRO program: https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing-and-marketing/verified-rights-owner-program.html#m17-1-...

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

The eBay VeRO team is supposed to at least validate the complaint is legit or not.

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Again, I refer to eBay's own history with us regarding that. If that were the case, why has eBay removed claims on our behalf upon seeing that our listing did comply with the written policy? (The policy that they have since removed) 

Even today, if you have a VeRO complaint filed against you, they will remove it in some cases. It's just that on Motors they apparently changed policy so that it can not be before the "years" of a vehicle name anymore. But there's no text to verify this.

I also mention the same things as I did in the above response. If eBay is actually taking action on the manufacturers behalf and imposing penalties without verifying the claims, that seems to be a breach of RICO. 

[slippinjimmy]

Even today, if you have a VeRO complaint filed against you, they will remove it in some cases.

Correct, if you file a counter-notice against the party making the original complaint and they do not respond within the allowed time limit then eBay may reinstate the listing.