Another productive eBay Trust and Safety Dept. "links policy" team meeting...

I gave you an update on eBay links policies a couple weeks ago.

Here's the announcement I sent you: http://www.mysilentteam.com/public/364.cfm

UPDATE ALERT! Now it's gotten even better!

eBay has canceled ALL links policy updates and rolled the clock back to pre-May policies.

So let's recap:
o They started out a year ago with a confusing links policy that needed revamped and clarified badly.
o To put an end to it all they announced a MAJOR pending shift away from pretty much all links in auctions and on "about me pages".
o They calmed down a bit and gave us back a few friendly exceptions to the still unofficial "pending policies".
o They threw in the towel and said "never mind" we are going back to where we started.

Yes, the picture above is an actual eBay corporate Trust and Safety "links policy" team meeting. I used black and white film.

Latest official announcement from eBay: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200807.shtml#2008-07-31132029

Here's the forum post where the discussion first started. You can follow the sordid history that way or join in the conversation (MySilentTeam.com members only):

http://www.mysilentteam.com/members/forum/openthread.cfm?forum=7&ThreadID=2275

This is GREAT news...but this is comical to say the least.

Bottom line. eBay is back to 100% the same way it was a year ago on links policies.

NOTE about EMAIL IN AUCTIONS: We'll likely still be losing the ability to include email in our auction and classified listings though. That change comes in Sept 2008.

NOTE about CLASSIFIED ADS: Who has ANY idea what this means for classified ads. My official position is GO FOR IT. Put links in your ads until they ask you to stop. Affiliate links in classified ads are back on the table as far as I'm concerned. How could they blame us for being confused!