May 16, 2008 at 12:18 am · Filed under Miscellaneous, Site Terms, Site Use, policy change · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article by admins bethela, Community, emilybidwell, matt, SarahSays, stellaloella, TechUpdates, Etsy details changes to two core site documents, the D&Ds and the TOU. Here is the article in its entirety.
Dear Etsians,
It’s spring! Time to refresh and renew. And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing here at Etsy — a bit of spring cleaning. We brought out the site policies and noticed they were looking a little dusty, rusty and rough around the edges. So we’ve polished up the DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use and are pleased to present some shiny, new and improved updates!
Last week we posted a sneak peek preview of the proposed updates to get feedback from the community. After a very positive reception and a few minor tweaks, we’re ready to put these into effect today.
For the most part, the policies are still the same. We’ve reorganized and clarified the existing policies to address some concerns expressed by members over the past year. We have made a few changes and additions. This update is in response to questions and issues raised by our community; our aim was to make the policies easier to understand and to address some of the preceived “gray areas.” For your convenience, we’ll outline the basic changes below, but we expect every member to read through the updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use in their entirety.
Both documents have been reorganized to provide a more logical arrangement of information. The Terms of Use has been tightened up as strictly the legal agreement for using the site. The DOs & DON’Ts contain all our site-wide polices that pertain to specific features and functions of Etsy. The DOs & DON’Ts have also been reformatted out of the constraints of the “Do/Don’t” list structure.
Below is the Cliff’s Notes version of the updates. (This will look familiar to those who participated in the preview last week.) Please follow the links to see the specific section where these policies are defined.
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list is no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Transaction disputes: Buyers and sellers are encouraged to communicate and resolve matters on their own. Transactions may only be reported in three situations: non-payment, fraud and non-delivery. Issues should only be reported after there has been an effort to resolve the issue between the buyer and seller.
Shop Policies: Sellers now have a dedicated page in their shops to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. You can read more about the Shop Policies feature in this article: Hello Policy.
Non-payment time frame: We have removed the “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service. We encourage all sellers to post their payment terms on their Shop Policies page.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations in which Etsy will consider removing feedback for members. You have up to 30 days from the date feedback was left to contest feedback. Additionally, we’ve expanded Kiss and Make-Up to allow members to resolve neutral (as well as negative) feedback issues on their own. Another feedback change we’ll be making soon: the ability to leave feedback will expire 90 days after the transaction date. That change will go into effect on July 1, 2008, so get your backlog of waiting feedbacks cleaned up before then.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in the community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
Terms of Use: The alterations to the Terms of Use have been mostly cosmetic, so we won’t get in to the nitty-gritty here. We cleaned up the language to make it easier to understand and reorganized some information to more appropriate sections. We added a new section on Meetings and removed the section on Feedback (as this info is more appropriate for the DOs & DON’Ts). In general, the Terms of Use and DOs & DON’Ts complement one another.
The updated DOs & DON’Ts and Terms of Use are effective as of today, May 15, 2008. However, there are some changes that will impact existing sellers and shops, and we want to give everyone a fair amount of time to adjust and edit. As such, we are allowing everyone a grace period of seven weeks. The deadline for full compliance is June 30, 2008 (by the end of the day at midnight EDT, for those of you who are sticklers or procrastinators). The grace period only applies to compliance with the changed policies as mentioned in this article.
Be sure the email address in your Account Info is up-to-date; we use this address to send vital messages about your account. An email will be sent to all members about this policy update, as well as the recent Search and Category changes. We are revising the Help section (FAQs and Help Guides) to be consistent. If you’re interested in getting other important news sent directly to your inbox, subscribe to our Etsy News Alert emails.
If you’d like to comment, ask questions or discuss these updates to our policies, please join us in this Forum thread. Etsy Admin Beth (aka bethela) and Lauren (aka stellaloella) will also be hosting office hours in the Virtual Labs on Friday, May 16 at 3pm EDT to chat about the site policies.
May 8, 2008 at 3:00 pm · Filed under Site Terms, policy change · By quirke
In this Storque article, admin gives a preview of upcoming changes to site policies and rules.
Dear Etsians,
One of the things I love most about working at Etsy is that, as a company, we strive to work with our members. We actively engage in discussions with our community, listen to your concerns and use that insight to help us shape the site.
The DOs & DON’Ts of Etsy have been in place for about a year now, and during that time, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from our community on these site policies, through the Forums, Virtual Labs and emails. Internally, we’ve spent several months gathering that info, discussing and reworking our policies to make them clearer and more balanced — and we’re now ready to share that work with you in a sneak preview.
Why a preview? As I mentioned, it’s important for us to get feedback from the community, to build the site together with you. We’ll be taking a few days to get your reactions and make any necessary final tweaks before we go live with the new DOs & DON’Ts.
For the most part, the policies remain the same, though we’ve reorganized things a bit. There are a handful of substantial changes, which I will highlight below. We’ve also published a special page where you can preview the updated DOs & DON’Ts in their entirety.
Reformatted: The most notable difference in this version is the format, and this is one of the key things we’d like your feedback on. The DOs & DON’Ts are no longer literally “Do/Don’t” statements. It became clear to us that this rigid format was not as helpful as we had originally anticipated. We’ve also added direct links to Help resources for each section. (Although the document isn’t literally “dos” and “don’ts” anymore, we’re keeping the name “DOs & DON’Ts” because our members already know this as the name for our site rules.)
Collective shops: The definition and requirements for collective shops have been clarified. (These are the rules for shops with multiple people involved.)
Conversations: Sending a Convo to notify a seller that they are featured in a Treasury list will no longer explicitly considered “spam.” Instead, common sense prevails — do not use Convos for advertising or promotional purposes.
Shop Policies: With the updated D&D, we’ll be launching a new feature; each seller will have a dedicated page in their shop to outline personal policies on payment, shipping, returns/exchanges and more. Please note that your shop policies may not contradict any of Etsy’s site-wide policies. (More info on this to come soon!)
Non-payment time frame: We’ve removed the site-wide “three days to pay” policy. We trust our sellers to use good judgement in developing their policies and provide excellent customer service.
Feedback: We’ve outlined the specific situations and time frame in which Etsy will consider removing feedback. We will also be tweaking the feedback system’s functionality: Kiss and Make Up will be available for neutral feedback and the ability to leave feedback will now expire 90 days after the transaction date.
Rules for listings: We’ve clarified a few of the long-standing gray areas, such as: defining vintage and supplies, conditional listings/upgrades, graphic design services and explicitly prohibited items.
Community: We’ve added an official anti-spam rule for the Forums and a policy prohibiting solicitation for donations in community spaces.
Teams and Storque: Making a first time appearance in the DOs & DON’Ts are specific sections for participation in Teams and The Storque. Nothing here is really new; these polices just have a new home alongside all the others now.
The Terms of Use, Help Guides and FAQs for the site will also be updated to reflect the changes in the DOs & DON’Ts. Those pieces will launch along with the final version of the DOs & DON’Ts. Once we gather your feedback and make changes (if needed), we will launch everything together. At that time, we will send an email notice to all members. We will also allow a grace period for all members to comply with the any changed policies.
You can see a preview of the revised D&D on their own special page here.
The accompanying forum thread is here.
March 6, 2008 at 12:04 am · Filed under Customer Service, Etsy Communications, Site Terms, Site Use, The Future, Uncategorized, policy change · By quirke
In this Storque article, Matt provides a summary of Monday’s discussion on Etsy’s policies and practices.
There is a direct link to the meeting minutes here.
edit by JB:
The posted minutes only contains the written portion of the chat and not Matt’s voice comments.
This past Monday I invited members of the Etsy community to join me in the Virtual Labs to share their comments and concerns. My intention was to give the community an opportunity to speak directly and candidly to us here at Etsy.
We were there to listen, and listen we did.
Over the past couple of weeks, we clearly made some missteps in the forums and customer support. We are sorry for anyone who was affected by our mistakes, and we’ve been reaching out directly to the people involved.
Our aim now is to take action by formulating clear and consistent policies and practices to make sure our community, and our company, will continue to be healthy, helpful, and supportive as we grow.
Here are the key issues raised during Monday’s meetings:
Issue 1: Buyer /Seller Disputes- What Role should Etsy play? What is a venue?
Issue 2: Shop Closures:- What are Etsy’s policies? What due diligence measures are being taken to make sure that mistakes are not made?
Issue 3: Relationship between Etsy’s Policies and a seller’s.
Issue 4: Feedback System - improvements and limitations.
Issue 5: Improving policy documentation: TOU, Dos and Don’ts.
Issue 6: Forum: Policies and environment. Muted sellers.
Issue 7: Admin tone, behavior, and accountability.
The entire Community & Support team is in NYC this week and we’re discussing the these issues. I invite you to email me directly at matt@etsy.com if there are other issues regarding customer support and forum policies that are important to you that weren’t discussed.
One quick note:
Monday’s discussion was rather spur of the moment. I realize how important it is to make sure everyone’s voice is heard, and I apologize to all who did not learn of Monday’s talk in time. I do assure you, however, that they were just the start of what will be regularly occurring conversations.
FYI: The comments as currently posted accidentally repeat the minutes from the morning meeting twice. The minutes for the second session start approximately three-quarters of the way down the page.
November 28, 2007 at 11:36 am · Filed under Images, Listings, Site Terms, policy change · By GreenMamba
Reported in the Storque. This article, quoted in its entirety, can be found here.
In order to clarify Etsy’s policy concerning the use of language and images on the site, Etsy has updated the wording of the DOs & DON’Ts slightly. (Please note that these are not policy changes; these are the same policies that were implemented at the time the DOs & DON’Ts were launched Spring 2007.)
People on Etsy come from many different walks of life; we’re an international, multi-cultural marketplace. These policies are about keeping this community healthy – and growing. Reaching a diverse audience is essential to the success of our marketplace.
New under Member Accounts:
- Don’t use profane or racist language in your username and/or public profile.
New under Selling:
- Don’t use profane or racist language or images in the public areas of your Etsy Shop, such as: username, public profile, item title, first image of a listing, tag, avatar, banner, announcement, and/or shop section.
The rules for listing Mature Content items have not changed.
Please brush up on these policies and make sure your shop is up to date.
An older version of the Etsy D&Ds, dated November 22, 2007 15:49:22 GMT, can be found here.
November 27, 2007 at 1:08 am · Filed under Privacy, policy change · By JB
The Storque reported today that Etsy has made some changes to their privacy policy.
Bolding added by editor.
Your privacy is very important to us at Etsy! When you submit personal information to Etsy, Etsy complies with our Privacy Policy concerning how we collect, store and distribute this information.
In an effort to make the Privacy Policy easier to understand and user friendly, we have made some changes to the Policy. Please note the content of the Policy has not materially changed!
Etsy is a secure site. We are a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program and we comply with the EU Safe Harbor Framework set forth by the Department of Commerce. Pursuant to our Privacy Policy, it is our duty to notify the community of changes — even minor ones like these — to the Privacy Policy.
Now, that Storque article is closed to comments and questions, so no one can ask exactly what the changes were. I have gotten a cached version of the previous Privacy Policy, from November 19, 2007.
I have compared the old version and the new version, and the changes are as follows.
Bolding added on changed text.
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Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Robert Kalin at support@etsy.com . If you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with us to resolve your concerns.
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Due to Etsy’s commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Etsy’s legal department at support@etsy.com . If you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will serve as a liaison to resolve your concerns
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• We hate spam as much as you do. We never sell or disclose your name or e-mail address to third parties.
• Etsy collects personal information when you register with Etsy to use Etsy services or to post content on Etsy. When you register we ask for your email address and certain optional information such as biographical information, favorite materials and personal interests.
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• Etsy will not sell or disclose your name or e-mail address to third parties without your explicit consent, except as specified in this privacy policy.
• Etsy collects personal information when you register to use Etsy services or to post content on Etsy. At registration you are asked for your email address and certain other optional information.
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IP addresses may be used for various purposes, including: to diagnose or service technology problems reported by our users or engineers that are associated with the IP addresses controlled by a specific web company or ISP; to estimate the total number of users visiting Etsy from specific geographical regions; to make sure that people are not voting for themselves or friends during contests or promotions.
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IP addresses may be used for various research purposes.
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We will send you strictly service-related announcements on rare occasions when it is necessary to do so. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we might send you an email.
Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature. If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your account by emailing support@etsy.com from the email address you signed up with.
Choice/Opt-out
If you no longer wish to receive service communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by emailing us at support@etsy.com .
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Etsy will send you service-related announcements on rare occasions when it is necessary to do so.
You may not opt-out of service-related communications, which are not promotional in nature. If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your account by emailing support@etsy.com from the email address you signed up with.
Administrative Messages (this whole section is new)
Etsy may periodically email you with administrative messages. Etsy will not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent. Your information may be combined with information Etsy collects from other companies and used to improve and personalize services, content and advertising. If you don’t wish to receive administrative messages or participate in these programs, simply opt-out by emailing support@etsy.com.
Choice/Opt-out
If you no longer wish to receive administrative messages, you may opt-out by emailing support@etsy.com .
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Old
Etsy uses its own cookies for a number of purposes, including to: Access your information when you “sign in”; keep track of preferences you specify while you are using Etsy’s services; display the most appropriate advertising banners, based on your interests and activity on Etsy; estimate and report our total audience size and traffic; conduct research to improve Etsy’s content and services. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on our site.
New
Etsy uses its own cookies for a number of purposes, including to: Access your information when you “sign in”; keep track of preferences you specify while you are using Etsy’s services; display the most appropriate advertising banners, based on your interests and activity on Etsy; estimate and report Etsy’s total audience size and traffic; conduct research to improve Etsy’s content and services.
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When you post a message, your Etsy ID or alias that you are posting under is visible to other users.
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When you post a message, your Etsy ID or alias is visible to other users.
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Old
Etsy may be required to disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Etsy Terms of Service. Etsy may share demographic information with business partners, such as “53% of users who regularly user Etsy chat are between 18 and 24″ or the like. No personally identifiable information will ever be used without your permission
New
Etsy may be required to disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Etsy Terms of Use. Etsy may disclose personally identifiable information to parties in compliance with Etsy’s Copyright Policy, as Etsy in Etsy’s sole discretion believes necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity. In such events, Etsy may disclose name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email address and company name. Etsy may share aggregated demographic information with business partners.
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Etsy does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or nonaffiliated companies except to provide products or services you’ve requested or when we have your permission. It may be necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Etsy’s terms of use, or as otherwise required by law. We will transfer information about you if Etsy is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, Etsy will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the Etsy web site before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
New
Etsy will not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with nonaffiliated parties except as specified in this Privacy Policy to provide products or services you have requested or when Etsy has your permission. It may be necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Etsy’s Terms of Use, as specified in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise required by law. Etsy will transfer information about you if Etsy is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, Etsy will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the Etsy web site before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
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Old
As part of the buying and selling process on Etsy, you will will obtain the email address and/or shipping address of other Etsy members. By entering into our User Agreement, you agree that, with respect to other users’ personal information that you obtain through Etsy or through an Etsy-related communication or Etsy-facilitated transaction, Etsy hereby grants to you a license to use such information only for Etsy-related communications that are not unsolicited commercial messages. Etsy and our users do not tolerate spam. Therefore, without limiting the foregoing, you are not licensed to add an Etsy user, even a user who has purchased an item from you, to your mail list (email or physical mail) without their express consent.
New
As part of the buying and selling process, you may obtain another Etsy user’s email address, shipping address and/or other information. Pursuant to Etsy’s Terms of Use, you have a limited license to use this information. This information should only be used for Etsy-related communications or for Etsy-facilitated transactions. Etsy has not granted you a license to use the information for unsolicited commercial messages. Without limiting the foregoing, without express consent from the user, you are not licensed to add any Etsy user to your email or physical mail list.
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We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.
New
Without limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and Etsy’s ability to keep the community free from bad actors, Etsy will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties without a subpoena, court order, legal process, or substantially similar legal procedure, except when Etsy believes in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to protect Etsy’s rights, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or to report suspected illegal activity.
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Bulletin Boards / Chat Rooms
New
Forums / Chat Rooms
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…
New
Third Parties
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this document addresses only the use and disclosure of information Etsy collects from you. If you disclose your information to others, whether they are buyers or sellers on Etsy or throughout the internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to them. Etsy does not control the privacy policies of third parties, and you are subject to the privacy policies of those third parties where applicable. Etsy encourages you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.
(this whole section is new)
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You can delete your Etsy account at any time from your account page; however, please note that your identification, billing and contact information may remain in Etsy’s records for some period.
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You can delete your Etsy account by emailing support@etsy.com. Please note that your identification, billing and contact information may remain in Etsy’s records for some period.
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We limit access to personal information about you to employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs. Your Etsy Account Information is password-protected. In certain areas, Etsy uses SSL-encryption to protect data transmissions
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Etsy limits access to personal information about you to employees who Etsy believes reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs. Your Etsy Account Information is password-protected
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If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by making the change on your member account page or by emailing our Customer Support at support@etsy.com or by contacting us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below. We will respond to your request within 10-20 business days.
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If your personally identifiable information changes you may correct or update it by making the change on Your Etsy Page. You may delete or deactivate your account by emailing Customer Support at support@etsy.com or by postal mail at the contact information listed below. Etsy will respond to your request within 10-20 business days.
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Old
The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number) on our registration or order forms,
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The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) for registration
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To learn more about our SSL, follow this link.
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(entire sentence deleted)
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If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our homepage.
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If the privacy policy is changed, Etsy will post changes so that you are aware of those changes. Etsy reserves the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If Etsy makes material changes to this policy you will be notified here, by email, or other places Etsy deems appropriate.
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November 9, 2007 at 12:55 pm · Filed under Customer Service, Features, Feedback, Site Terms, Site Use, policy change · By Kate Black
Etsy admin, Emily Bidwell chimed in here on a forum discussion about the realities of blocking unwanted buyers on Etsy.
emilybidwell says:
REFUSING SERVICE
The seller may refuse service to anyone for any reason. No questions asked. The seller is expected to cancel the sale and refund the buyer if they paid.
BLOCK BUYER
To block a buyer, please send them an Etsy Conversation. Explain to them in an appropriate way that you cannot offer them your services. If they continue to buy from you, Etsy will consider this harassment, and may suspend the account. Contact abuse [!at] etsy.com if this happens.
FEEDBACK
Feedback is an important community resource. It is a record of not only your performance, but of both parties account of a transaction. We understand that feedback is not always perfect, but in order to preserve the integrity of the system, we consider it permanent. It is the right and duty of each member to leave feedback to the best of their ability. We encourage everyone to leave feedback that is professional, accurate and fair. Ideally, the feedback should be an account of the product, the transaction and the service. If you have a problem with the feedback you received, we ask that you settle the dispute via the Kiss and Make Up feature. If you cannot Kiss and Make up, you may present your case to us at abuse [!at] etsy.com.
Posted at 11:38 am, November 9 2007 EST
Also, on page 40 of the same thread, Emily confirms that Etsy will remove negative or neutral feedbacks left by rejected buyers.
emilybidwell says: If the buyer leaves a negative feedback as a result of the seller cancelling their order, will Etsy remove that negative? (Or remove a neutral?)
………………
We would definitely look into this, as it would likely qualify for removal.
