I recently bought an item on eBay. I received an email through eBay that my item had shipped.

[terryawhile]

I also received an email directly from this seller to my mail application. My question: how did the seller obtain my email address, through eBay, PayPal?

[femmefan1946 · Accepted solution]

The billing information the seller receives includes your (real) name, your address, your email address  your company name (if any), your eBay ID and quite often your telephone number.

Most of this is needed for shipping labels.

If you look at the bill you got, you should have most of the same information about the seller.

[mcrlmn]

I believe both have your email address.

If it came from eBay, check your account settings to enable or disable various notifications.

If from seller, it is available in the transaction info on PayPal.

[reallynicestamps]

The email address you attach to your Paypal account will be visible to the other party in the transaction.

They also see your name and address.

Sometimes they see your telephone number . In some cases, the carrier wants a phone number to arrange a drop off time.

You can anonymize this to some extent, by using an email address only for Paypal, by using a form of your own name*,or by using your business phone number rather than your personal phone.

But if you disguise this information heavily, you can't blame eBay, Paypal, the carrier or the seller for being unable to complete the transaction.

*John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith becomes Jacob Jingleheimer.

[momcqueen]

Yes. Sellers are not allowed, however, to email you directly for non-ebay or non-paypal reasons related specifically to that ebay transaction. If that is happening, you can report them for unsolicited messaging. 

[momcqueen]

Sellers are prohibited by ebay's User Agreement from adding you as a buyer without your expressed consent to their emailed* ad programs such as newsletters or sales flyers that come directly from the seller as opposed to through ebay's seller support program which allows them to do so.

If this is the type of thing to which you are referring, you can call ebay Customer Service to report this unauthorized use of your personal information. If the seller simply emailed you to say, "Thanks!" then I would not suggest this is the type of violation ebay seeks to correct. But, neither ebay sellers or other paypal users are absolutely not allowed to send you their outside-ebay.off-paypal spam for things pertaining to a website they operate. It's a violation of the privacy agreement. You are not a seller's customer, as an ebay user, your data belongs to ebay. 

* Notices of shipment and/or tracking through Shippo (the ebay-authorized postage-provider) may look odd at first but that's another ebay-sanctioned association, not some wildcard company the seller has signed you up to hear about.