Our website uses cookies, Web beacons, and third-parties to provide you with services that support your buying and selling activities within our online marketplace. To protect your privacy, use of these tools is limited. For more information on our privacy practices, see our Privacy Policy.

About cookies

"Cookies" are small files placed on the hard drive of your computer. eBay uses cookies to provide services to you. 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 website to:

• Enable 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.

• Analyse our site traffic.

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. See here for information about managing Flash cookies

 [kac1]Barbara, if you’ve got some way to rewrite this so it does not provide more specific information than the rest of our cookie discussion on this page, please do so. Otherwise, I’d advise taking it out entirely.

Cookies on eBay's discussion boards – Our third-party service providers for eBay's discussion boards use session cookies to facilitate conversation threads and overall service functions.

Cookies and search – If you enter a search term like "red fire engine" on the eBay Search page, you will see a line in the source code that reads "kw=red fire engine". 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're 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 website, 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 maximise web traffic flow.

How eBay protects your privacy with third parties

• We work with third parties to provide you with additional products and services. These third parties are subject to confidentiality agreements with eBay and other legal restrictions. These restrictions prohibit the use of the information eBay provides them for any purpose except to facilitate specific outsourced eBay-related operations.

• eBay does not permit any third parties to collect personal information through the use of cookies or Web beacons. eBay uses software to regularly verify that these third parties do not collect any personal information in ads using cookies or Web beacons.

• eBay uses DoubleClick, a third-party ad-serving technology, to serve ads. eBay does not permit DoubleClick to collect any personal information through the use of cookies in ads. Please visit the DoubleClick website for more information about its business practices and privacy policies.

• eBay does not permit third-party content on eBay (such as an item listing) to include cookies or Web beacons, although this may still happen from time to time. If you believe a listing may be collecting personal information or using cookies, please report it to spam@ebay.com.

• Web TV users: The temporary cookie placed on your computer is only valid for your current eBay session. Once you sign out of eBay, the temporary cookie is removed.