How does eBay use AI?
We use AI to improve and enhance our services to make eBay safer, easier, and more useful for our users. For example, AI may help power:
- Buying and discovery experiences, such as product recommendations, search results, personalized content, and other ways to help users find relevant items
- Selling experiences, such as listing generation, suggested listing details, image enhancement, pricing or category suggestions, and other seller tools
- Customer service experiences, such as AI assistants, automated support, request routing, issue summaries, analysis of customer service interactions to improve quality, and tools that help customer service teams respond more effectively
- Trust, safety, and compliance systems, such as tools that help detect fraud, abuse, policy violations, suspicious activity, counterfeit risk, or other activity that may affect marketplace safety
- Research and operational support, such as analyzing data for specific patterns (e.g. for market research purposes) or supporting routine operation of the marketplace (e.g. to create summaries, to translate text or to generate images)
What information may be used to operate AI-powered tools, products, and features?
AI-powered tools, products, and features may use information as context to deliver that tool, product, or feature and/or generate a response, recommendation, summary, classification, or other output.
Depending on the tool, product, or feature, this information may include information you provide to eBay, information about your activity on eBay, and information about listings or transactions.
- For example, an AI-powered listing tool may use information about an item to suggest listing details, and an AI-powered customer service tool may use information about a support request to help provide a response
Using your information to operate an AI-powered feature means the information is used once, in the moment, to produce an output for you. It is different from using information to train an AI model, which builds or improves the model itself. How we use data to train models is described in the next section.
What information may be used to train, fine-tune, or improve generative AI models at eBay?
eBay uses publicly available information and, where appropriate, certain user information to train, fine-tune, or improve generative AI models. This training is undertaken for eBay's purposes, as part of improving and enhancing our Services.
Most information used for generative AI model training or fine-tuning comes from publicly available, licensed, research, or synthetic datasets, which may incidentally include personal data.
We may also use certain user personal data, such as information about your activity on eBay - including information relating to items you view, buy, sell, or list, interactions with our Services, and feedback about sellers or products - where we determine that doing so is necessary and proportionate for a specific purpose. Before using this information for AI model training, we apply privacy-preserving measures, such as de-identification or other technical safeguards.
Special category data, such as health-related or biometric data, is generally processed only in limited circumstances at eBay and is not used to train generative AI models.
The purposes for which user personal data is used to train or improve generative AI models include:
- Improving shopping experiences: by enabling the AI to interpret and apply user preferences, providing more relevant search results. Here, AI is trained or fine-tuned on patterns from user interactions, using data about viewed items, purchase history and feedback on eBay sellers and products that have been de-identified or with other privacy-preserving techniques applied
- Improving selling tools: by enhancing listings, image enhancement, categorization, or listing suggestions. Here eBay trains or fine-tunes AI models using information relating to prior listings, product descriptions, images, item attributes, marketplace activity, and seller feedback to improve listing creation, categorization, image enhancement, and other seller tools, using data that has been de-identified or with other privacy-preserving techniques applied
- Improving customer support: by enabling the AI to interpret support requests, summarize interactions, or provide more helpful responses. Here we use de-identified content extracted from customer support requests, customer service interactions, transaction or listing details relevant to a support issue, case outcomes, and user feedback to help AI better understand support requests and provide more helpful responses
- Improving operational eBay Service capabilities: by providing AI with the context needed to enhance translation, summarization, classification, content generation, or similar AI-powered features used across eBay's Services, using data that has been de-identified or with other privacy-preserving techniques applied
Please check back! If we introduce materially new categories of generative AI training involving user personal data or commence training using non-de-identified or non-aggregated data for these disclosed use cases, we will update this AI information page.
How does eBay protect privacy when using AI?
When we use personal data for AI-powered experiences, we take steps designed to protect privacy and reduce potential privacy impacts. Where appropriate and technically feasible, these steps may include limiting the data used, de-identifying (i.e. removing personal identifiers, such as usernames and email addresses) or aggregating data before use, using large, diverse datasets, and applying output filters, as well as using contractual restrictions with service providers. All generative model training activities are carried out in secure environments. Some information, such as certain publicly available information, business information, listing information, aggregated information, or de-identified information, may not be considered personal data in certain jurisdictions or contexts. Where AI training involves personal data as defined under applicable law, including in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland and the United Kingdom, we process that data in accordance with the eBay User Privacy Notice.
What choices do users have?
Your privacy rights and choices are described in section 6 of the eBay User Privacy Notice. Depending on your location, these may include rights to access, delete, correct, object to, or restrict certain processing of your personal data.
Users in certain regions, such as the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland and the United Kingdom, have specific rights when personal data is used for generative AI training. If you are in one of these regions and we use your personal data to train generative AI models based on our legitimate interests, you have the right to object. You can do so by visiting AI Preferences - opens in new window or tab. If you object, we will not use your personal data for future generative AI training.
In some cases, this right does not apply or is limited. For example, we will still process personal data for fraud prevention, safety, security, legal compliance, or other purposes where applicable law permits or requires us to continue processing.