Feedback comments containing any of the following are not permitted:
Links or scripts
References to eBay or PayPal investigations
References to law enforcement investigations
Negative statements that conflict with a positive rating
Personally identifying information about another member, including real name, address, phone number, or e-mail address
Political, religious or social commentary rather than a genuine comment about the transaction
The comment, reply or follow-up references a completely separate transaction or unrelated experience
Profane, vulgar, obscene, or racist language or adult material, or material that is blatantly defamatory in terms of criminal law
Inflammatory language, such as "fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man" etc., while strongly discouraged, will not be removed.
Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:
Under Singapore law, anyone who makes or publishes (which would include electronic publication such as on a Web site) any imputation concerning any person, intending to harm the reputation or knowing that such imputation will harm the reputation of such person, may be found to be guilty of committing defamation.
For further information, please refer to the Penal Code (Cap 224) and the Defamation Act (Cap 75).
eBay is a network service provider for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act (Cap 88) and eBay does not censor feedback or investigate it for accuracy, and therefore eBay is not legally responsible for the remarks that members post, even if those remarks are defamatory. However, this law does not protect the person who leaves the feedback from responsibility for it. Furthermore, under this law, a network service provider is not subject to any civil or criminal liability under any rule of law in respect of third-party material in the form of electronic records to which he merely provides access if such liability is founded on (a) the making, publication, dissemination or distribution of such materials or any statement made in such material; or (b) the infringement of any rights subsisting in or in relation to such material.
Under the Sedition Act (Cap 290), it is an offence to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore.
Why does eBay have this policy?
Feedback is the foundation of trust on eBay. Abuse of the eBay feedback system undermines the integrity of the feedback system and decreases trust within the eBay marketplace. Though feedback is a member-to-member system, there are specific, limited occasions when eBay will remove feedback comments at its sole discretion.
For additional information about the circumstances under which Feedback ratings and/or why comments may be removed by eBay, consult the Feedback Withdrawal and Removal Help page.
