8 ms·

not the User Agreement! Impossible to enforce, they can read browser windows and pass captchas

drum55 9mo ago
eBay is hyper aggressive about fingerprinting, they will catch things like it trivially. Browsers leak all sorts of information like what sockets are open on localhost, making yourself look like an actual person is very challenging to someone motivated to detect you.
- Nextgrid 9mo ago
  LLMs don't need browser automation though. Multimodal models with vision input can operate a real computer with "real" user inputs over USB, where the computer itself returns a real, plausible browser fingerprint because it is a real browser being operated by something that behaves humanly.
  - drum55 9mo ago
    Sure, the cost of that goes way up though, especially if it has to emulate real world inputs like a mouse, type in a way that’s plausible, and browse a website in a way that’s not always the direct happy path.
  - Ekaros 9mo ago
    But will they behave like same user in past? I would guess there is lot of difference between how bot accesses page and real user has historically accessed them. Like opening multiple tabs at one time, possibly how long going through next set takes. How they navigate and so on. There might be lot of modelling that could be done simply based on words used in searches and behaviour of opening pages. All trivially tracked to user's logged in session.
    - TeMPOraL 9mo ago
      > But will they behave like same user in past? I would guess there is lot of difference between how bot accesses page and real user has historically accessed them. Like opening multiple tabs at one time, possibly how long going through next set takes. How they navigate and so on. That would be making an assumption that a device and/or account maps 1:1 to a specific human. It does not. People share accounts, share devices, and ask others for one-off help ("hey can you finish buying this for me while I deal with $[whatever our kid just did]", this kind of stuff).
wobblyasp 9mo ago
Probably less about direct enforcement, more about after the fact. Ebay doesn't want to deal with charge backs for hallucinate purchases
- petcat 9mo ago
  Yeah, they're hedging against "AI purchases". eBay has already been dealing with automated/bots for years.
- mandeepj 9mo ago
  > Ebay doesn't want to deal with charge backs for hallucinate purchases A charge back doesn’t mean buyer always wins. Imagine if credit card companies also pass a rule - “LLM or AI purchases are non-refundable”. On a different note - once I tried to cancel an eBay order within a minute, both eBay and seller declined. It’s so fked up with them.
lo_zamoyski 9mo ago
> Impossible to enforce Maybe, but a policy's or law's validity or importance are not contingent on them being enforceable.
- TeMPOraL 9mo ago
  No, but when instituting bullshit policies or trying to regulate natural/normal behavior for selfish gain, it helps you if you can enforce the policy, otherwise people will just ignore it.
drnick1 9mo ago
This. These kinds of "rules" are basically useless because they are not enforceable. It's exactly like having speed limits but no cops.
g947o 9mo ago
If Amazon has not defeated Perplexity yet, eBay is not going to stop anyone.

eBay is hyper aggressive about fingerprinting, they will catch things like it trivially. Browsers leak all sorts of information like what sockets are open on localhost, making yourself look like an actual person is very challenging to someone motivated to detect you.

Nextgrid 9mo ago
LLMs don't need browser automation though. Multimodal models with vision input can operate a real computer with "real" user inputs over USB, where the computer itself returns a real, plausible browser fingerprint because it is a real browser being operated by something that behaves humanly.
- drum55 9mo ago
  Sure, the cost of that goes way up though, especially if it has to emulate real world inputs like a mouse, type in a way that’s plausible, and browse a website in a way that’s not always the direct happy path.
- Ekaros 9mo ago
  But will they behave like same user in past? I would guess there is lot of difference between how bot accesses page and real user has historically accessed them. Like opening multiple tabs at one time, possibly how long going through next set takes. How they navigate and so on. There might be lot of modelling that could be done simply based on words used in searches and behaviour of opening pages. All trivially tracked to user's logged in session.
  - TeMPOraL 9mo ago
    > But will they behave like same user in past? I would guess there is lot of difference between how bot accesses page and real user has historically accessed them. Like opening multiple tabs at one time, possibly how long going through next set takes. How they navigate and so on. That would be making an assumption that a device and/or account maps 1:1 to a specific human. It does not. People share accounts, share devices, and ask others for one-off help ("hey can you finish buying this for me while I deal with $[whatever our kid just did]", this kind of stuff).

wobblyasp 9mo ago

Probably less about direct enforcement, more about after the fact. Ebay doesn't want to deal with charge backs for hallucinate purchases

petcat 9mo ago
Yeah, they're hedging against "AI purchases". eBay has already been dealing with automated/bots for years.
mandeepj 9mo ago
> Ebay doesn't want to deal with charge backs for hallucinate purchases A charge back doesn’t mean buyer always wins. Imagine if credit card companies also pass a rule - “LLM or AI purchases are non-refundable”. On a different note - once I tried to cancel an eBay order within a minute, both eBay and seller declined. It’s so fked up with them.

lo_zamoyski 9mo ago

> Impossible to enforce Maybe, but a policy's or law's validity or importance are not contingent on them being enforceable.

TeMPOraL 9mo ago
No, but when instituting bullshit policies or trying to regulate natural/normal behavior for selfish gain, it helps you if you can enforce the policy, otherwise people will just ignore it.

drnick1 9mo ago

This. These kinds of "rules" are basically useless because they are not enforceable. It's exactly like having speed limits but no cops.

g947o 9mo ago

If Amazon has not defeated Perplexity yet, eBay is not going to stop anyone.