Live Animals Banned on eBay

EBay Scraps Plans to Offer Live Pets

Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. has canceled plans to allow live pets to be sold on its Web site after receiving thousands of angry letters from users.

The San Jose-based company has long banned the sale of live animals except fish and snails, and officials said Monday they were scrapping plans to create a separate classifieds category that would feature free ads from animal shelters and paid ads from breeders.

Over the weekend, an eBay manager revealed in a posting to an online message board that the company was considering lifting the ban, prompting letters from more than 2,000 users, most of whom urged that the ban remain, said company spokesman Hani Durzy.

Users were worried the listings would encourage puppy mills, where animals are sometimes bred in unsanitary conditions, and that it would be difficult to differentiate between legitimate animal shelters and unsavory sources.

"The feedback was pretty overwhelming," Durzy said. "Farms and for-profit commercial breeders wasn't something that they wanted to see."

Booming sales of pet supplies -- and the possibility that users may want a pet listing service -- had prompted the company to reconsider its ban on the sale of live animals, Durzy said.

Information from: San Francisco Chronicle,

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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think it was horrible that eBay would have even considered the sale of animals through its web site to start with. Most buyer/sellers do business over a long distance using the mail or a delivery service. How is a dog or cat or other animal supposed to feel if it gets shoved into a box, sealed up inside, very possibly with no food or water, very possibly freezing cold weather, and delivered thousands of miles away and a couple days later to some total stranger it has never seen before? PAT]

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