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eBay Bans AI Shopping Agents in User Agreement Effective Feb. 20

The change signals a response to the rise of agentic tools that attempt purchases without human review.

Overview

  • eBay posted the revised User Agreement on January 20, 2026, with the terms set to take effect on February 20, 2026.
  • The update explicitly outlaws unauthorized “buy-for-me” agents, LLM-driven bots, and any end-to-end flows that try to place orders without human oversight.
  • eBay broadened its anti-scraping language to name AI and LLM bots, following a quieter robots.txt update in December that added guidance for automated agents.
  • Arbitration terms were tightened by expanding the class-action waiver, restricting opt-outs to new users, and updating the mailing address for legal notices.
  • Value Added Resource first spotted the change, which was then covered by Ars Technica and The Register, and The Register noted it sought comment from eBay.