EBay Live! 2008: How Open Can eBay get?

According to eBay, "User Generated Content is an industry wide problem", and eBay feels particularly afflicted.  How “open” is eBay wanting and able to be in the future?  The question of openness is not only valid for applications on the eBay Open Platform (“Project Echo”) but in particular also for regular eBay sites.

As eBay indicated at this year’s Developers Conference with its Roadmap for User Generated Content (PDF), eBay - in comparison to Amazon and Etsy (!) – provides the most flexibility with respect to customization of product websites.

Nevertheless, eBay struggled with policies on whether or not users could freely link to external sites and to which extent slideshows, YouTube videos and other rich media elements were allowed to be bound into product descriptions.

Now it seems a decision has been made.  The so-called UGC-Roadmap (PDF) defines guidelines which will help clarify what (and what is not) allowed.  EBay will start tightening the rules as of next year:

• No Flash, Javascript or otherwise uncontrollable code will be allowed in standard code.  A specially created eBay ETML-Standard (“eBay Safe Markup Language”) will be implemented to enforce this.

• Permitted will be widgets that are both hosted with eBay and also have the eBay nod of approval.  The widgets, for which a special directory will be created, will allow for a “Rich User Experience” on eBay sites.  And just to be perfectly clear: "Rich content will only be provided by few select developers, must be turned into widgets and vetted by eBay."

The guidelines raise a few interesting questions.  Are YouTube videos which are not hosted with eBay allowed or not?  And on which conditions can one become a trustworthy widget partner?

EBay promises with the new rules “better control” – permeated throughout the whole presentation (PDF) there is a clear aggressiveness towards User Generated Content.  Nevertheless, over the short or long term, eBay’s current stance could be relevant for other shopping platforms, too.

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, translated by Jason Soo.