More on the impact of the password fiasco on eBay sales

[pocomocomputing]

Saw this on the eBay.com Seller Central forum.

SAN FRANCISCO -- News of Internet security breaches at eBay, Target and other large companies appears to be having an effect on online habits.

A USA TODAY survey finds that almost a quarter of Americans have at least temporarily stopped buying online because of security concerns.

A full 24% of those surveyed said they had stopped buying anything online in recent weeks because they were concerned about the safety of information they might put online.

Read the full article here.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/06/03/internet-security-survey/9907947/

[lady.stark]

There really is an impact - at least for me. In May, I was very happy, because sales were quite good. At least better than previous months. Since the announcement was made about the breach, I only made one sale where the bidder bid *before* the announcement and he never paid. I will be closing the Unpaid Item dispute tomorrow. 😞 No sales since then.

[rose-dee]

The world lives online nowadays, and I'm sure many eBay users will realize that, despite the initial scare, a password change should protect them. 

I would think that most users also realize there are other popular sites they use that are inherently far more dangerous and far less controlled than eBay.  Yet people keep going back to those sites despite security fiascos. 

All we can hope is that the fear will pass, the buyers will return, and that eBay will tighten up the defences. 

[pierrelebel]

"a password change should protect them"

Unfortunately a password change will not change the fact that over one hundred million users information are available to criminals, including their name, address, email address, phone number and date of birth. 

When will that information by misused?  Who knows?  Nothing to do with changing a password.

[pjcdn2005]

I don't remember giving my date of birth to ebay and don't see it listed with my personal information. Perhaps that has changed?

I think that in this day and age it is becoming easier and easier to steal information like that even if you don't shop online but do use a credit card in a brick and mortar store. (wasn't the Target problem with their b & m stores?)

Obviously not everyone feels like that but hopefully those that are now wary about shopping online will give it another chance in the near future.

[pierrelebel]

"...those that are now wary about shopping online will give it another chance..."

Most will, in time.

However, looking at it from a seller's perspective, if 90% of buyers remain active on eBay despite the "privacy issue", it still leaves 10% (tens of millions of potential buyers) out of the marketplace.

With more and more items listed for sale on eBay every month, the competition for the buyer's dollars has been very intense on eBay.  With 10% fewer buyers, it will not get any better any time soon.

Instead of offering promotions to sellers to have more items listed, eBay managers should concentrate their efforts in bringing in more qualified buyers.

"wasn't the Target problem with their b & m stores?"

Yes and their sales were affected negatively, so were their profits. And that breach was smaller than eBay's.

[rose-dee]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

"a password change should protect them"

Unfortunately a password change will not change the fact that over one hundred million users information are available to criminals, including their name, address, email address, phone number and date of birth. 

When will that information by misused?  Who knows?  Nothing to do with changing a password.

---

So, as I initially suspected, despite eBay staff reassurances, this really was a horse-and-barn-door story? 

I do understand that a password change now won't undo what was already done, but what it will do (we can hope) is prevent further exposure for individual users who come back to the site -- and make the password change. 

My understanding was that the personal information would only be accessible if the passwords that were stolen could be de-encrypted.  From the article in eCommerceBytes that dealt with the subject generally, it sounded like a pretty difficult thing for even seasoned hackers to accomplish (the "salted and hashed" discussion).