The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is to investigate eBay after Privacy International lodged an official complaint about the company’s data retention practices.
Privacy International (PI) alleges that the auction site is deliberately making it difficult for people to delete their accounts, with the aim of bolstering customer numbers.

Under the 1998 Data Protection Act (DPA), firms are obliged to allow people to delete their registration information.
PI head Simon Davies explained: “There are two categories of offenders in cases like this. eBay is a category two offender, which means that it does provide an opt out option, but it is not easy to find. Category one offenders, such as Amazon or Friends Reunited, have no delete account function at all.”
Davies said PI had chosen to target a lesser offender in the hopes of getting a clear ruling from the ICO on what best practice should be.
“We could probably win if we challenged a category one offender,” he told us, “but what we want is a set of clear, enforceable guidelines requiring companies to prominently display an account delete function”.
The ICO has confirmed it is looking into the complaint, and said it will be contacting eBay about the allegations.
eBay, meanwhile, says users can delete their registration information, and that it only shares user data with law enforcement agencies.

Posted: 08|31|06 at 3:34 pm. Filed under: UK News.