 have eBay gone one step too far with their new marketing services update? Is it even legal? I'm not a legal expert but this is very concerning to me. Let's have a look at the details as it's described by their new update. So it looks like they've done it again. Another sneaky update in a slightly out of the way place on the platform without actually informing us properly via an email or an inbox message. So in order to find these details what you need to do is go to your active listings page and at the very top you're going to find a little bar that's not even highlighted properly it's just a outlined box that says changes to our marketing terms. We've made some updates to the eBay marketing program terms and then at the other side of the screen a little tab that just says take a look. Now when you go to this you're then greeted with a huge long page of updates. Now I'm not going to go into all of it but I highly strongly recommend you go and take a look at this information because as always and I like to do this and you've got to do it if you've got to read between the lines on so many things and they hide things slightly out of the way or they word it in a non-simplified version it's all legalese as far as I'm concerned. I'm not completely thick I'm not completely basic but I'm nowhere near the levels of understanding of legalese so maybe I'm reading these wrong but some of these points worry me and I think eBay may have got a little bit of a God complex that's gone that one step too far now so this is what we're greeted with so we've got the eBay marketing program terms okay so let's take a look into this step by step and see what we've got okay so we've got the standard terms coming up here so you've got marketing services and it's just starts off by giving you little information marketing services include self-service and fully managed marketing tools through which you can request to promote eBay listings or other content by agreeing to pay a fee to eBay as described in these marketing program terms and the marketing services so when you use the marketing services you authorize eBay and its partners as applicable to use automated tools to assemble and format adverts ads based on the content defined below we may limit the number of ads you can create at a given time and also may limit the availability of any or all of the marketing services for example to listings from certain categories or containing certain attributes doesn't tell you what those attributes are or which categories that it's going to limit your advertising with in our soul in our soul discretion in certain cases third parties e.g. brands may also participate in eBay advertising programs which promote the same eBay listing as your ad and you remain responsible for the marketing fees not sure what that means either way let's carry on you incur notwithstanding such promotion and understand that those third parties may receive advertising performance information related to their promotion on your listings now i'm hoping that just means like we already get in our say standard promoting uh promoted listing ads you get impressions and you don't know that some of those impressions are coming from within other people's listings which ones they do which ones they don't i'm assuming it just means that data i would hope so where were yeah notwithstanding performance related to prominent lists by using the marketing services you authorize eBay to place your ads in any size placement or location on any content or property each a property provided by eBay or a third party so that just basically means they can promote anything anywhere and still count it towards your impressions etc and your fees good or bad placement they don't tell you what that placement is but they'll charge you for it so we may make available certain features or services through which we may help you optimize your participation in the marketing services this is where it gets interesting for example by creating or modifying campaigns setting or modifying ad rates and or budgets before i carry on this means they can start a campaign even though you didn't start it they can create it even though you didn't create it they can modify it even though you didn't modify it and they can change your budgets even though you may not be able to afford those budgets to carry on and adding or removing keywords or other targeting parameters so even if you've chosen the selected words at the price point you want they can add more at whatever price point they want and you have no control zero control if you elect to use those features or services by informing us in writing or as reflected in your settings via marketing with services you understand that we may manage your campaigns and take such actions on your behalf without your prior consent as may be further described by us in writing or in marketing services so before i carry on they're basically saying let's just say you set a promoted listed campaign five percent they can change it to ten percent without any notice so you get a sale and i'm sure you've noticed it may take a little bit for it to show up as a promoted listing sale they can suddenly change it from five percent to ten percent and you have no way of knowing they can whack out more of your profit margin without your consent you have no way of knowing it's happening and they can do it and there's nothing you can do about it now in my eyes when you take something from someone without their consent isn't that theft i don't know i'm not accusing them of theft but that's how i would have interpreted that they're basically saying it doesn't matter what you promote it doesn't matter what you're promoting it doesn't matter how much your budget is if we decide that our profit margins are down this month this quarter this year whatever we're going to take some more money off you and there's nothing you can do about it because we have control we wouldn't even know because they're not that transparent with us anyway are they so it goes on a little bit about making sure you keep your credentials up to date and you secure it on your account you don't give authorization to other people that's fine that's not a problem standard information and it goes on to content and explains that they'll rejig your advert to promote it however they wish on whichever format they want whether it be the main site or a subsidiary or a third party site and they could basically jiggle it change it and promote it wherever they want and again maybe i'm just splitting hairs here but we know that the images we put up apparently ebay own the rights to our images even though they're your images and i'm sure legally you have some control over that but again not too worried you want to promote my product that's fine what i am concerned at is especially with the whole vero thing of say you've got brand new products and other brands don't want you using their brand that's one aspect but i'm just reading this here and again i might i might just be splitting hairs but let's just read this out so this section here when providing us with content you grant us non-exclusive worldwide perpetual irrevocable royalty free sub-licensible through multiple tiers including without limitation through ebay affiliate subsidiaries and partners transferable rights and license to a use reformer reproduce and display your ad and content including your logo content code and material provided by you on your behalf on the properties and be exercise any and all copyright trademark publicity and database rights in the content in connection with our provision expansion and promotion of our marketing services in any media now known or in the future again i might be reading that wrong but i mean a lot of people might not be bothered but my i mean for me my logo my company logo is my trademark that's my rights no one else has the rights to that so i mean i don't mind them using it for the ads but having the right to change that logo i'm not sure i'm keen on that idea but again i'm not sure how that works this is more concerning now ebay reserves the right to decline to publish delay the publication of or remove any ad or content in its sole discretion for any or no reason and without any liability to you or any other person you agree that this shall not relieve you of your responsibility to ensure compliance with all applicable laws regulations and third party rights ebay reserves the right in its sole discretion to make edits to any ad or content you acknowledge that your participation in the marketing services may impact the display ranking and or placement of your listings and the ads may appear in lieu of your listing listings and vice versa so they don't even have to have a reason to remove your ad they can just remove it they don't have to have a reason to not display it they can just not display it that's a bit concerning if i pay for a service i expect to get a service so let's have a look fees pretty standard that i can see nothing in there that concerned me uh cost per click click pricing i don't use it but again three lines i mean if if you participate in the marketing services on a cost per click basis you agree to pay an amount up to and including the aggregate reflected in your account settings or as determined by your participation in optimization features which may include ad rate automation for each click on your ad so three lines to basically just say and i suppose it is actually important to be fair going back to where they can manipulate your ad rates from ad keywords and do whatever they want to your campaign whenever they want so basically it's just saying you're responsible for it not our problem we want to charge you more we will charge you more we'll we'll buff it up we'll increase your campaign budget or your daily budget or your cost per click budget we'll control that and we'll charge you regardless and it's your responsibility to pay it that's a little bullying because if you don't want to do it they won't show your listings that they're like a school it's like a school playground bully give me your lunch money or i'll beat you up that's how it kind of comes across to me i don't know but uh i would definitely take a look into this i mean there's a few things in here that really do concern me you know i mean subscription section yeah check it read it out if you want but uh i mean certain certain of the marketing services may be offered on a subscription basis with auto renewing payment subscription services the billing period and pricing for each type of subscription service will be a specified via the marketing services at the time of registration you expressly acknowledge and agree that one we are authorized to charge you on a recurring basis for the subscription services in addition to any applicable taxes and other charges which we know at the then current rates as long as the subscription services continue and two the subscription services will continue until you cancel as specified in the marketing services or we suspend or stop providing access in accordance with these marketing program terms there are no refunds or credits for partially used subscription service periods yeah pretty standard so this is basically just pay you dues you know that's not an issue but it does concern me it really does i i definitely think you need to read this through check to make sure for yourself that nothing is out of place nothing is ringing any bells and i would certainly think carefully before entering into any of the campaigns and i would monitor them daily to make sure and check each sale at this point going forward to make sure that you're not being overcharged they've not manipulated or changed your your costings very concerning very concerning so yes they now have control they can now charge what they want how they want when they want where they want but they're supposedly looking after sellers i think not decide for yourself i don't want to influence you you make your own business choices personally i am phasing out promoted listings um i'm gradually decreasing my percentages to the point where i no longer have to rely on them i have no intention of using them and once they're ended i will be deleting them so they can't be restarted or i would hope that they can't be restarted but we shall see but then again who's in control who's platform who's sandbox okay guys make sure you check it out i'll put the link in the description below keep it real