ebay blocks search by bidder

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by ibuysportsephemera

eBay is doing everything it can to be Amazon.

Jeff

+1 Anytime you wonder what eBay's motivation for doing something is, just ask yourself "how would Amazon do it?" I can hear the eBay execs now, "What? You mean Amazon doesn't tell everyone who bought that widget from Seller A? Then why the heck are we doing that? Get the code monkeys to strip that info out of there!"

Also remember that autographs, and sports collectibles in general, are a very very small part of the overall eBay pie. If they are doing something that affects every eBay user's experience, you can bet their reasons (however nonsensical) are influenced by something broader than our corner of collecting.

Update: Found this response from an eBay employee on one of their message boards:
"Yes, this is a new change to the site. We expect that with the features we're announcing today (new profile pages, collections, etc.) that there will be more visitors viewing each other's pages. Buyers may not want to share their past purchases with the general public, so the details on what items were purchased have been made private. You can still see someone else's buyer feedback and their ratings. The details on what they purchased and for how much are the elements that have been made private. Also, you can still search by bidder if you'd like from Advanced Search. If you click on a search by seller first, you will see an option to search by bidder as well."

As usual, in an attempt to make the site more attractive to new users (or at least, new users who don't want people seeing what they buy), eBay removes or hides functionality that established users actually find useful.