Andrea Stairs

In September 2009, eBay Canada received a court-authorized requirement from the Canada Revenue Agency that requires it to release the account information and sales data of Canadian resident eBay members who meet the following criteria:

• Sales of more than $20,000 and at least 24 sales transactions in any of the calendar years 2006, 2007 or 2008, (irrespective of membership in eBay’s PowerSeller program); OR
• Sales of more than $100,000 in any of the calendar years 2006, 2007 or 2008, regardless of the number of sales transactions.

eBay is only required to release sales information for the year(s) in which a seller met the above sales thresholds.

The member information that will be released for 2006, 2007 and/or 2008 includes: full name, user id, mailing address, billing address, telephone number, fax number, email address, and the selling prices (high bids) of the items.

As you may be aware, this is the second court order of this kind that eBay has received from the Canada Revenue Agency. In November 2008, after a lengthy legal battle to defend our members’ privacy, eBay was required to reveal the account information of members who held PowerSeller status in 2004 and 2005.

We recognize that this matter is of concern to our members. While eBay strenuously objects to this violation of our members’ privacy, we are obliged to comply with the court-ordered requests. The court orders, additional information and the answers to some commonly-asked questions are posted at www.ebay.ca/CRAinfo. If you have additional questions about this situation, you may email CRA_info@ebay.ca.

eBay is alerting all members who are affected by the court order prior to disclosing their account information to the Canada Revenue Agency.

We remind all eBay members that they are responsible for ensuring that they are in compliance with all laws and regulations relating to their activities online.

Regards,

Andrea Stairs
eBay Canada