Buyers and sellers seem to be engaged in a war of attrition where negative feedback is one of the main weapons, and now eBay has announced that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback on buyers, hoping that this will help to rebalance things.
Both sides in a transaction get to leave feedback on the site, but it seems that sellers are threatening to leave negative comments on buyers' profiles if they say anything at all critical, knowing that this will make it harder for them to trade in future.
When Bill Cobb, eBay's head of North American operations, announced the changes he admitted that "the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation".
Selected Vocabulary
war of attrition
retaliation
front-runners
