eBay uses cookies, Web beacons, and third-parties to provide you with services that make the eBay site more efficient for your buying and selling activities. eBay limits the use of these tools to protect your privacy. For more information on eBay’s privacy practices, see eBay’s Privacy Policy.

About cookies

"Cookies" are small files placed on the hard drive of your computer. eBay uses cookies to provide services to you and help ensure account security. Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive once you end your session (log out or close your browser).

eBay uses cookies on certain pages of the Web site to:

• Allow you to enter your password less frequently during a session.

• Provide information that is targeted to your interests.

• Promote and enforce trust and safety.

• Offer certain features that are only available through the use of cookies.

• Measure promotional effectiveness.

• Analyze our Web page flow.

Cookies we use for trust and safety (Flash cookies) - eBay uses Flash cookies, which are cookies written with flash technology, to help ensure that your account security is not compromised and to spot irregularities in behavior to prevent your account from being fraudulently taken over. For information about managing Flash cookies, click here.

Cookies on eBay's discussion boards – Our third-party service providers for eBay's discussion boards (for example, Canada Town Square, Café francophone d'eBay.ca, etc.) use session cookies to facilitate conversation threads and overall service functions.

Cookies and search – If you enter a search term like "red fire truck" on the eBay Search page, you will see a line in the source code that reads "kw=red fire truck". The search term becomes the keyword, which allows the code to search eBay for the search term. eBay's policy is not to display banner ads from non-eBay sellers that compete directly with the search term you enter, unless it is a service not provided by other eBay sellers (for example, "car insurance.")

Your choices about cookies – We offer certain features that are only available through the use of a cookie. You are always free to decline cookies if your browser permits. However, if you decline cookies, you may not be able to use certain features on the Web site, and you may be required to reenter your password more frequently during a session. Learn how to set your browser to accept cookies.

Web beacons

A Web beacon is an electronic image, called a single-pixel (1 x 1) or clear GIF placed in the Web page code. Web beacons serve many of the same purposes as cookies. In addition, Web beacons are used to track the traffic patterns of users from one page to another in order to maximize Web traffic flow.

Use of cookies and web beacons by third parties

We may work with other companies who place cookies or web beacons on our websites. These companies help operate our websites and provide you with additional products and services. They are subject to confidentiality agreements with eBay and other legal restrictions. eBay does not permit any of these companies to collect personal information using cookies or web beacons on our websites.

DoubleClick and MediaPlex are our service providers who use cookies to help us deliver our own content and compile anonymous site metrics and analytics. We require these companies to use the information they collect only to provide us with these services under contract.

We participate in cookie-based exchanges operated by BlueKai. BlueKai uses cookies to collect anonymous information, which may be used to tailor the advertising you see on the eBay sites or elsewhere on the web, but we don’t permit them to collect any personal information about you. Learn more about Blue Kai’s business practices and privacy policies, including how to decline participation in their program.

We don’t permit third-party content on eBay (such as item listings) to include cookies or web beacons. If you believe a listing might be collecting personal information or using cookies, please report it to spam@eBay.com.