eBay will begin blocking third-party AI “buy-for-me” agents from autonomously placing orders on its platform starting February 20. The change appears in an update to eBay’s User Agreement, which explicitly prohibits “buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review” unless the tools are approved by eBay.
eBay is drawing a clear boundary around who is allowed to automate commerce on its platform, and under what conditions. Like most platform rules, enforcement is imperfect. The aim is not to eliminate automation entirely but to restrict it at scale through account controls, contractual leverage, and selective access, rather than allowing unrestricted autonomous buying to proliferate unchecked.
This is not a rejection of AI. eBay continues to deploy AI internally, including AI-assisted messaging tools for sellers and other automation features highlighted in recent earnings calls. What it is rejecting is uncontrolled, third-party automation at the point of transaction. That distinction (between AI that assists users and AI that executes purchases) is now shaping policy across the industry.
