Seller Release addressing this is found here (Seller Centre sr17-1/Contact-Links).
Quoting:
What's the change?
To ensure our marketplace remains a fair and safe place to buy and sell, and to prevent transactions off eBay, weโre making some changes to our policies.
From September 2017:
- You'll no longer be allowed to share contact information in your item descriptions, images, eBay Stores or seller profiles.
- We're updating our Links policy to limit the types of links allowed on listings.
For more information please see our latest updates.
[...]
From mid-2017, if youโre an eBay Store subscriber or list in the Motor Vehicles category, youโll be able to indicate whether or not youโd like us to share your customer service phone number with buyers via the Ask a question link.
We recommend you update any active listings now which contain your contact details.
Sharing contact information will still be permitted within classified ad listings.
[...] FAQS
[...]
No. Business and personal contact information, such as email addresses and phone numbers, is not permitted anywhere on eBay including: listings, Store pages, feedback profile, About Me, guides, and other member-created content.
View our Links policy for more information on the types of links that are permitted in listings and other eBay pages.
(Note below - "However, there are a couple of updates in sr17-2 worth noting" - which modifies the above.)
There's also the Seller Centre sr17-2/Policy-Updates. It contains a whole range of information and outlines the punitive measures taken against members who violate the terms (which are specified in grisly detail). Quoting:
The key update to the eBay User Agreement is that weโve made it clearer how we address violations of our policy on Offers to buy or sell outside eBay and Member to member contact.
Sellers who violate these policies will be liable for final value fees for the item.
To avoid these fees and other actions that eBay may take such as blocking messages, limiting buying and selling privileged and suspending your account, you should make sure you do not offer or reference your contact information, or ask for a buyer's contact information [...]
The above finishes with the words "in the context of buying or selling outside of eBay.", but when it comes to offering or referencing contact information, eBay now presume guilt - hence the "context" phrase only outlines what happens as the rule, not the exception.
However, there are a couple of updates in sr17-2 worth noting:
Since our previous announcement, we are adding exceptions to our policy. You can soon include links to terms and conditions (T&Cs) pages in the Gift Cards category. Links to domain names or websites for sale are also permitted in Computing, Domain Names categories. You are not permitted to include links to the warranty T&Cs within your listing. However, you may create an item specific about the existence of a warranty and include a link to the T&Cs.
If you wish to provide your customer service phone number for post-transaction support, you can use a new eBay feature that makes your customer service phone number available when a buyer uses "Contact seller." You can opt in to the feature within "Manage communication with buyers" in your account settings.
No other off-eBay contact information or links are permitted.
Links that direct customers to a site other than eBay are not allowed, except when linking to:
- Product videos
- Freight carrier services and quoting platforms
- Required legal and regulatory information
This policy applies whether the link is clickable or not, and includes any attempts to direct a customer off a page. It extends to all member-created content, such as listings, Stores pages, Stores headers, seller profile pages, newsletters, images, etc.
Links that direct customers to other eBay pages are allowed. This includes links to eBay Messages, other eBay items, Stores pages, Follow Seller or Add to my Favourite Sellers features.
Any permitted links cannot direct customers to pages that encourage people to view, search or purchase items off eBay.
Offers to buy or sell outside of eBay policy. It's a frustratingly named policy because a seller who has no intention of selling outside of eBay wouldn't think to look within that policy on whether or not a seller can include address, phone number or email address in a listing. This represents eBay's current mindset; if you as an eBay member (buyer or seller) display or reveal or provide your contact information (except post-transaction for the purpose of completing the purchase, and even then I can sense eBay's frustration that it can't be done with buyer and seller completely unaware of each other's identities and details) ... if, as I say, eBayers display etc their contact information, it must be with the intention of ripping off eBay. That's what eBay think. It's an assumption of guilt.
Quoting from this policy:
We don't allow our members to use eBay to contact each other to make offers to buy or sell items outside of eBay. Also, members can't use information obtained from eBay or any eBay systems to contact each other about buying or selling outside of eBay.
[...]
Not allowed
Some examples of activities that aren't allowed include:
- Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay system to offer to sell any item outside of eBay.
- Posting or displaying contact information in a listing, including email, phone number and mailing address, without the permission of eBay or except as required by law.
- [...]
- [...]
- Including, requesting, offering, or referencing contact information or an offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay within a listing, Best Offer, email message or other communication with an eBay user or any other place on the eBay site.
- [...]
- Referring to or promoting your personal website (including links to home page web addresses that promote websites outside of eBay), sales outside of eBay, or other businesses in your listing page or in communications with another eBay member.
I've highlighted the bits that are most pertinent, and skipped three bullet points in the full policy.
The current eBay User Agreement references these in a less specific way than the above, but it's still clear enough what eBay do not permit in the context of contact information. In particular, note 4. Abusing eBay.
Quoting:
Links that refer or promote sites or items outside of eBay
Restricted- Including links to eBay Stores and items is OK, as long as they're not URL redirects
Not allowed- Referring to or promoting the seller's individual website (including links to home page URLs that promote websites outside of eBay websites), sales outside of eBay, or other businesses
Email addresses, phone numbers, and domain names in the title, subtitle, images, or item location
RestrictedListing contact information (including home page URLs that promote outside-of-eBay websites) in the title, subtitle, item location or images is only allowed when the item for sale is a domain name
There might be more, but these are the most obvious policies and current information pages referring to these changes.
